another possible cargo plane crash..

homerjay2005

bad week for air incidents, this is the 4th ive heard of in a week.

A large cargo-type plane crashed in the US state of Alaska and burst into a deadly fireball that sparked a forest fire at Denali National Park, officials said.

Park spokeswoman Kris Fister said there were fatalities, but it was unclear how many because “the plane pretty much disintegrated”.

The fire was challenging responders, who did not immediately know who owns the multiengine aircraft.

The plane went down near the park’s eastern edge at about 100 yards off the only major road in the park.

No missing planes were immediately reported and military officials said none of their planes were involved.

Clint Johnson with the National Transportation Safety Board said there are a number of large transport planes operating in Alaska. The NTSB was expected to arrive on scene this morning.

George Clare, of Las Vegas, said he saw the plane flying very low and slowly while he was walking toward the visitor’s centre near the park entrance.

He thought the plane was going to land on a local airstrip, so he proceeded to the visitor’s centre. Within minutes, people came running in and saying a plane had crashed.

He said the crash caused a column of smoke a few miles west of the visitor’s centre.

Mr Clare said the aircraft looked like a military plane to him.

“It was a military khaki green kind of colour,” he said. “It was propellor-driven. It was a fixed wing aircraft and it had kind of a flat underbelly.”

Doug Stockdale with the Alaska Fire Service said the fire was initially estimated at two acres but could have grown larger.

The crash happened just four days after a military cargo plane crashed at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, killing four people onboard.


Read more: http://breakingnews.ie/world/investigators-rush-to-site-of-fatal-plane-crash-467731.html#ixzz0vSB2Mj9N

Blue Punto

N909RR
C-123 Provider is the aircraft involved



Also a CV-580 Fire bomber crashed in Alberta with the lossof the crew


Bad week in Aviation indeed

N7777G

Blue Punto wrote: »

N909RR
C-123 Provider is the aircraft involved


Also a CV-580 Fire bomber crashed in Alberta with the lossof the crew


Bad week in Aviation indeed

The correct reg of the C-123 that crashed is N709RR.
Quite a famous aircraft it was too, as it starred in the movie "Con Air".

Blue Punto

Yup

N909RR is a G2

Vegasclimber

This is subject to update, but yes it does appear to be the aircraft used in Con Air.

I used to work for the company that originally owned the aircraft, and I can tell you it was a classic example of a rare aircraft, and probably one of the best condition-wise in civilian inventory. My condolences to the family and friends of those that perished in the crash.

The aircraft is a Fairchild C-123k Provider, and the N number is N709RR. The RR stands for Redick's Raiders, a nod to the aircraft's original civilian owner, Al Redick Sr. Al owned Aviation Classics, Ltd. and the aircraft was based in Stead, Nv. for quite some time.

The aircraft was sold in 1994 to Ray Petkow, and was the flight aircraft used in Con Air. There were two other aircraft painted with the same paint and N number, one a hulk that is still in Wendover, and a partial airframe that was used for the crash scene in Vegas.

The website Old Wings has much of this information, including a picture of the aircraft in Con Air regalia:

http://www.oldwings.nl/content/con_air/n709rr.htm

And a picture of the aircraft after it had been sold to All West Freight, Inc, which is based on their private airfield in Alaska.

http://www.oldwings.nl/content/ak77/n709rr.htm

You may notice that the "Jailbird" nose art was replaced with Ray's nose art, and the name "Large Marge" which was the nickname for this bird as long as I can remember.

Although All West has two other Providers, one is in mothballs and disassembled, and as of 2007 their other craft, N123K, was still in the process of being made airworthy again. In addition, many of the eyewitness reports state the aircraft was "white" - which in poor light could easily have been the unpolished metal of N709RR.

N709RR was also used as a static aircraft in "Die Hard 2" (The aircraft he supposedly "ejects" out of even though the 123 is not equipped with them) and in at least one car commercial.

The eyewitness reports state that the aircraft crashed while inverted, very close to the only road in the area. There have been suggestions that they may have lost an engine, which is a dicey situation in a 123 if they are loaded and slow - they were slightly underpowered. Failure to quickly feather an engine in that situation, could have caused the aircraft to roll into the bad engine and then stall out. Perhaps they had lost the engine and were attempting an emergency landing.

Please note that I wasn't there and I don't know exactly what happened. I have heard that the plane narrowly missed a bus full of tourists at the park, so it narrowly avoided being an even bigger tragedy.

We will have to wait and see what the NTSB says, but it's a damn shame in any case.

N7777G

The Air Force has released some photos of the C-17A that crashed - not much left of it either.

May they rest in peace.

http://www.elmendorf.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/100730-F-0990S-003.jpg

http://www.elmendorf.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/100730-F-0990S-004.jpg