2 dead in Alabama crash of UPS cargo plane

[Psalm 51:17]

2 dead in Alabama crash of UPS cargo plane
8/14/13
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/14/us/alabama-cargo-plane-crash/?hpt=hp_zite1_featured

Birmingham, Alabama (CNN) -- The pilot and co-pilot of a UPS cargo plane died Wednesday when their jet crashed, broke into pieces and burned near Birmingham's airport, officials said.

While UPS said the status of its crew remained unconfirmed, Birmingham Airport Authority Chairwoman Gaynell Hendricks and the city's mayor confirmed the deaths.

"It's a grim scene," Hendricks told CNN affiliate WBRC.

It appears the plane, an Airbus A300, broke into at least two pieces. A photograph provided by city officials shows the crumpled front portion of the plane resting in a debris-strewn field.

The plane, which took off from Louisville, Kentucky, went down on a street that runs parallel to the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, Mayor William Bell said.

The location is about a half mile north of the runway, FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen told CNN.

What caused the jet to crash around 4:45 a.m. (5:45 a.m. ET) was unclear. The crew did not report any trouble, Bell said, citing conversations with control tower officials. Light showers and a visibility of 10 miles were reported in the area of the airport at the time of the crash, according to CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen.

The National Transportation Safety Board expected to have a team on site late Wednesday morning, NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt told reporters.

A spokesman for Bell confirmed late Wednesday morning that no buildings were hit and no one on the ground was injured.

Crews were still working to put out fires around the wreck, Brooks told the station, adding that he believes damage extends over about a half mile.

Alabama Power cut electricity to about 140 buildings near the crash site as a precaution, utility spokesman Michael Sznajderman told CNN.

Airport neighbor Sharon Wilson told WBRC the plane seemed lower than usual for flights into the airport and sounded like it was sputtering as it flew overhead.

"We heard this loud boom, like, jump up out of your bed," she told the station.

CNN affiliate WVTM said witnesses its crew had spoken with also reported hearing "a large boom," followed by several other explosions.

"This incident is very unfortunate, and our thoughts and prayers are with those involved," UPS Airlines President Mitch Nichols said in a written statement.

The plane was one of two flights UPS sends to Birmingham each day, company spokesman Mike Mangeot told CNN affiliate WBRC.

The plane that crashed Wednesday was built in 2003 and had 11,000 hours in the air spread over 6,800 flights, Airbus said in a news release.

Only UPS and FedEx fly the A300 in the United States, according to its manufacturer, Airbus. While it was once used for commercial passenger flights in the United States, the plane is now used only for cargo flights. UPS has 53 of the planes, according to Airbus.

Wednesday's crash is the second involving an A300 in the United States. In 2001, an American Airlines A300 crashed in the Belle Harbor neighborhood of Queens, in New York City, shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport.

All 260 people on board the plane, as well as five people on the ground, were killed.

The cause was ultimately attributed to pilot error, according to the NTSB, which said the first officer put excessive pressure on the rudder pedal, causing the separation of the vertical stabilizer.

The Birmingham crash is the second fatal accident involving a large jet in the United States since early July, when an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 crashed on landing at San Francisco International Airport. Three people died.

Wednesday's crash comes nearly three years after UPS's last major incident, the crash of a Boeing 747 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that killed two crew members.

Investigators traced the crash to a large fire in the cargo hold, which included a number of flammable lithium batteries, according to the country's General Civil Aviation Authority.

In 2006, a McDonnell Douglas DC-8 flown by UPS caught fire after landing at Philadelphia International Airport. Three crew members on the plane evacuated with minor injuries, according to NTSB records. Most of the cargo was destroyed.

[Kilika]

"It's a grim scene," Hendricks told CNN affiliate WBRC.

Strange comment, though it is grim when people die, seeing how from at least mid point in the fuselage forward to the pilot's cabin was intact and unburned. The glass was even still in the windows. It looks like it broke in half forward of the wings.

[Psalm 51:17]

http://news.yahoo.com/ill-fated-ups-jet-autopilot-seconds-crash-234540961.html
8/17/13
Ill-fated UPS jet was on autopilot seconds before crash

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - The UPS cargo jet that crashed in Alabama this week, killing its two crew members, was flying on autopilot until seconds before impact, even after an alert that it was descending too quickly, authorities said on Saturday

"The autopilot was engaged until the last second of recorded data," said Robert Sumwalt, a senior official with the National Transportation Safety Board.

He said information retrieved by investigators from the flight data recorder aboard the United Parcel Service jet showed that its auto throttle also was engaged until moments before the fiery crash.

The Airbus A300 jet was approaching the runway at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth airport before dawn on Wednesday when it clipped the trees in an adjacent residential area and crashed into a steep embankment well short of the runway.

Sumwalt, who spoke at a media briefing near the crash site, had said on Friday that the pilots received a low altitude warning barely seven seconds before the sound of impact. He repeated that in his remarks on Saturday but did not say whether the alert had triggered any attempt by the crew members to disengage the autopilot as part of a last-ditch attempt to abort landing and re-gain altitude.

The pilots did not issue a distress call.

Sumwalt stopped short of saying there was anything unusual about a so-called "instrument approach" to the airport using autopilot.

But he said the NTSB would be looking closely into "UPS's instrument approach procedures" and how it typically went about guiding a large cargo hauler to touchdown on Birmingham-Shuttleworth's Runway 18.

That's the runway the UPS jet was approaching when it crashed and Sumwalt said the investigation would include a flight test at the airport in a UPS A300.

Kevin Hiatt, president and chief executive officer of the Flight Safety Foundation, an Alexandria, Virginia-based international watchdog group, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday that a "full instrument" landing was not highly advisable at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth.

The airport can be tricky to land at because it is nestled among hills and that is especially true of Runway 18, said Hiatt.

Hiatt, a former Delta Airlines pilot, said he had touched down on the runway many times himself.

"It is not a full instrument landing. You have to visually fly into that runway," he said. "Sometimes it takes nuance to land there. You have to realize that hill is there or you could come in too low."

The crash occurred shortly before dawn in rainy conditions as low-lying clouds hung over Birmingham.

So far, Sumwalt said there was nothing to indicate the crash was caused by engine failure or any mechanical issues.

He also said the runway lights were examined and found to have been "within one one-100th of a degree of being properly aligned" at the time of the crash.

UPS has identified the dead crew members Cerea Beal Jr., 58, of Matthews, North Carolina, and Shanda Fanning, 37, of Lynchburg, Tennessee.

As a standard part of any accident investigation, Sumwalt said the NTSB was looking into the physical and mental well being of Beal and Fanning in the 72 hours before the accident.

Beal, the captain of the downed aircraft, had about 8,600 hours total flying experience, including more than 3,200 hours in the Airbus A300, according to the NTSB.

(Refiles to add dropped word "and" in 11th paragraph)