about 2:55, 2933 asks for vectors after they got already instructions to head for the VOR? So, if everything aside of low fuel would have been okay, they should have had the VOr in their NAV1 and know aboutish which way to fly, right? So, why asking for vecots again, in a situation, the ATC had just turned around 3020 to land fast to get her out of the way?
And what is that "runway inspection"? See, the airport was open, so it was not a big inspection closing the runway for hours, it was probably just someone looking for how many water was on the runway. Still this information makes no real sense at this time unless the ATC would expect a delay due to it?
at 4:03, the pilot says, he is at 18,000ft and confirms, he sees the other traffic
at 4;19, he says, he is just through 16,000 and calls for vectors again
sooooo, 16 seconds, 2000ft, that makes 7500fpm. Exactly 7500fpm! Now, if a pilot flies the descend for example manually, he would end up with a number somewhere between 7400 and 7600. The chances to hit exactly such an even number by accident are very low, so it appears to me, the decend was controlled by AP. But 7500 is also the maximum descend you can even set in that AP and it is for the steep approach procedure which normally goes along with flaps out and slow. So, he was 0.1nm from VOR Rionegro and less than a minute, he was 8.2 miles out of Medellin. Now, the only Rionegro VOR, I can find is 2.7 miles away ... sooo, this can't be right, and therefore, I can't figure out the speed of the plane. Maybe Israel, who knows the area can throw some light on this. But given how near it all is, the speed of the plane was actually quite low (in FG we would call this the JWocky-slow-as-molassis-approach).
The point, I don't get here, this is totally inconsistent. If I am low on fuel, so low, I run already on fumes, I try to descend steep okay, and I will do so probably manually because that gives me basically access to all the spare capacities of the plane, an AP usually doesn't use. The point is, I would want to go down fast, but without flaps to get for the moment as high speed as I can probably get without ripping the crate to pieces, every knwo gives me some meters more glideway and if I have too much speed, I can always butterfly-butt it. Especially if I am already in a good position to just glide down, as Vincent already saw. So, this is like this pilot had either notreally any deeper familarity with the type of plane he was flying or he didn't expect really to run out, only to land with criminal little fuel in the tanks.
at 4:46 the pilot reports total failure, asks for vectors
Now, that makes sense ans it doesn't. It makes sense to report it, it makes sense to ask for vectors if his ILS was dead due to electrical failure, alright! But when the ATC asks him for his course, he says 360, straight north ... uh ... magnetic 360, and that is NOT straight North there. I can't find the deviation, but I remember from earlier flights in that area, it is quite noticeable. Consequently, the ATC told him to steer 10 degrees. Soooo ... he knew earlier already the course, even if he lost the electrical systems, his course should remain a constant, he was on localizer and this is not FG where he crosses a tile border and suddenly everything is different. All he needed to do was to keep the course from before, now by magnetic compass and glide. Even with his weird descend before, he should have had enough altitude and speed to reach the runway and I kind of assume, if I can do this math and give it a try, a trained pilot should be able to a thousand times. On the other hand ... who knows, Whut da-fuk, Som-tingis wrong?Maybe I just overestimate trained pilots?
So, now, he reports total loss of electrical and no fuel at all. At 4:46. Like, he had maybe fuel till maybe 4:30 or so? So, he was just for a few seconds without fuel and therefore without generators. This plane had a 1900nm flight behind it, that is roughly what 4 hours 20 or 30 minutes, give or take depending on the weather. Over four hours with two running generators, one should assume. So, even if the batteries were old, without maintencan and dragged through a swamp before they put them in to un-mothball the bird, if those batteries would have been that dead, he wouldn't have been able to start the plane to begin with (even not with external power supply because the battery system would have sucked more than the external would be able to supply). I mean, at least the crew would have noticed it. However, there is always one dirty trick more. You can feed a whole system directly from the generators and just switch the batteries out of the circuit. There are a thousand reasons not to do it, but you could get the bird flying. Problem is, if the fuel runs out, you are really without electricity from one moment to the next. So, this would be consistent with what the pilot reports ... only if it was that, he wouldn't have been able to report it because also his radio would have been without juice, but it sounds strong to the last moment. So, curious me, I looked at the schematics. Now, I have only the Bae-146 here, not the later RJ85 and Avro made probably some changes, so it's a bit wobbly but bottom line seems to be, there are several buses and in standard configuration, the avionics, like AP. ILS, AI and so, hang on another one than communications, at least in early BAe-146s. A little weird seems to be, that in normal operation, the avionics bus, bus B is fed by the APU while smaller devices actually hang on a C-bus fed by the generators in the outboard engines. I am not sure how reliable my schematics are, but if, that means, the APU was off, the engine generators were running or still spinning down and thus still producing a little electricity.
Lets think here for a moment very primitive. The last message was at 5;40 at 9000ft. Not sure where the pilot got that information from if all his instruments were dead, most RJ85s were updated to glass cockpits, right? See, this all makes no sense. Even with the generators still spinning down, this message should have been noticeable weaker if he really had no electricity. So, what, if he had juice, he only didn't know? Somewhere a failure in the avionics bus, not generator failure or really no electricity? He was at the end panicking because he expected to run out of fuel, so, when his instruments went off, he reported what he ASSUMED to be the reason and that was what he expected, to run out of fuel.
I also looked at various photos of the crash site, but that makes the details even weirder:
1.) The point of first impact and then the main crash site are both mostly distinct. There is not much debris I can see between them. Like the plane hit that mountain low and then slid upwards.
The two left ones are the main debris site, the right one is the first impact side.
Now, basic physics tells, the nearer your impace angle is to the perpendicular angle of the surface you crash into, the lower the defelction and the higher the force. What we see at the first impact site is the tail (or a part of it), the forward plane slid upwards and left a cut lane in the vegation, basically only leaving small debris along the way.
So, at the moment of impact, the nose was up and not just two degree or so, but significantly. Basically more than the angle of that slope. This indicates, there was at least elevator control to get the nose up that far. So, at this point, there was electricity because the hydraulic pump had to run to move the elevator.
2.) To lose the tail in first impact is the typical tail strike situation. However, if you look at the main debris, the aft and middle of the plane are practically disintegrated.
But from the wings on forward till almost where the ockpit once was, there is a part of the fuselage still intact. Then, the cockpit is missing, but that's maybe the angle of the photo. So, if I identified the parts right, the force was still on the real. Means, the plane had not much turn impuls after the initial tail strike. The speed had to be low. She didn't just fall out of the sky like a stone.
3:) The engines ...
Okay the engine case is gone, but what I don't see here is missing or twisted turbine blades. And the more you look to the outside, the deeper, the dirt is pressed between the blades. The engines on a Jumbolino hang high, okay, but at the time, this one touched dirt, it was spinning. Not so fast to spread it's parts over the vicinity, but fast enough for a cutting effect. If thos blades would have stood still while that engoine started to eat dirt, it would havre meant to overcome resistance which means, the blades would be at least bent backwards. Which is weird because the pilot reported no fuel at 4:46 on the tape and the planes was in the air still at 5:40, almost a minute later. So, at this time, the engines should have been standing still or, while still gliding spinning with the airflow. So, to me, there seems to be a discrepancy because those little ALFs don't need that long to spin down without fuel. They don't have enough mass to keep the moment long.
4.) The direction between first impact and main debris is roughly 290 degrees. So, the last ATC instruction, confirmed by the pilot was a course of 10 degrees. Now, at the time of the impact, the sliding body was of course tunred around and followd basically the direction of the valley. Only, that would have left a curved debris trial and #I see only a straight one. So, maybe someone with better eyes takes a look and maybe see a curve there, but if it is strainght, it means, that the plane was at the time of the impact headed to roughly 290. Which poses the question how did the plane get there and on this course without engine power, without electricity for the hydraulic pumps and without any idea where they were and where they wanted to go?
Sooo, as usually, I will be accused of speculating, but then, it is a way to share thoughts. And also of course, there are like a thousand details we can't see in those pictures and data, we don't have, so in the end, in like two years, we will hear, it was all the pilot's fault.
*** Edited because clumsy me linked a wrong picture ***
