The missed [soccer] match

[KL-666]

And what a stark contrast is this, with blaming small fish for errors in the organization (my previous post).

http://correodelsur.com/seguridad/20161 ... -viru.html

As far as i read this, and i am a complete nono in Spanish, this article says: The pilots are hailed as heroes.

That is an extremely premature conclusion, considering every evidence points to the airline and the pilots at this point in time. Are the authorities trying a huge spin here? Pilots are heroes, airline nothing to blame, institutions nothing to blame. No let's blame the bad officer taking in the flight plan, without any authority to reject it. Problem solved, and everybody lived happily ever after.

I am slightly loosing my confidence that Bolivia is capable of any justice and solving their organizational problems.

Edit:
Btw, the location of the signature of the officer is interesting. It is in the box of "Additional information", Not the box "Accepted by". I suppose that is about the biggest power the officer had to show her disagreement with the flight plan.

Kind regards, Vincent

[IAHM-COL]

Força Chape

[jwocky]

Nicely done, Israel!

@Vincent: If they would admit in Bolivia, they have no control overt their airlines, it would be a bad thing for tourism in a country that tries to earn foreign currencies because their own economy failed. So, as usual, the organization sacrifices the individual. And that is not specifically Bolivian in its nature, it happens everywhere and millions of people suck up to it.

[IAHM-COL]

This is very surprising:
It was reported by one survivor that the pilot not only fail to declare emergency to the ATC in Rionegro. He also omitted informing both the Flight Crew and Passengers to prepare for crash-landing

BrainHurts!! HeartHurts!!

I translated the note:
(again, I am awful translator and I don't give much warranty. I've just tried my best)

http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/na ... ulo-668920

Passengers of the Chepecoense's Aircraft did not became aware of Emergency


This was ascertained by Erwin Tumiri, one of six survivors of the air tragedy
in La Union (Antioquia) that left 71 dead persons. It negates versions that
reassured he saved his life by performing fetal safety posture.


(image)

A hundred of versions were told surrounding what occurred at the interior
of the LaMia airlines aircraft, with 77 people on board, among them players
and coach-team of the Chapecoense Soccer team, a few minutes before it
crashed to Cerro Gordo (fat mountain), in the municipality of La Union
(Antioquia) last November 28th night.

It was speculated that players, journalists, and directives of the soccer-club
yelled and ran accross the aircraft aisles (note of translator: it uses
plural in spite jumbolino only has one aisle) when knowing the plane was
falling down, beside it was told that one of the survivors of the air
tragedy, Erwin Tumiri, had performed fetal safety posture and this was the
action sparing his life. All of this is false.

the Bolivian aeronautical technician Erwin Tumiri, who left the
hospital Somer on Rionegro Friday, narrated in dialogs with Blu Radio those
minutes before the accident occurred.

"I was sat down in the aircraft stern. we were all tranquil, a few playing
cards, other watching movies, listening music, very joyful, I had conversed
the coach for a while" he says just before the accident the pilot requested
the flight crew and passengers to comply with normal landing protocol

"Nobody knew what has been happening at this time we all believed we were
landing normally, we were advised to fasten seatbelts because we were near
to land. Nobody was expecting it, thus nobody yelled", he detailed.

He said that passengers were not alarmed at any moment nor that they felt
the plane descending abruptly.[/b[ Just, in a matter of seconds, [b]the lights
of the plane shut off and the emergency lights shut on alerting Erwin
something was not proper. "I listen like a metal sheat flexing and that's it,
everything occurred very fast".

For this reason he negated the information that was made during this week that
he had performed a fetal posture, which saved him". Neither I, nor the
flight attedant that survived (Ximena Suarez) made any safety protocol
Because we believed we were just landing, the pilot never informed us
about any emergency"

When the rescue team arrived the place of the accident found Erwin, who
guided them with flash light signals, and beside him laid on the floor,
the flight attendand Ximena Suares; in front of them sat in the craft's chairs
Alan Rushcel, soccer's defendant of the Chapecoense, and the[/b] goalkeeper
Marcos Danilo Padhila, who survived to die later while being transported to
the Hospital.

"When I woke up I was face down, I step-up as within a dream, I picked up
Ximena who was trapped with the restroom's curtain and we ran uphill[/b]
because it was raining and the ground was swamp. We rest on a tree-trunk
and then there back and head pain began. I started yelling to see who was
alive but no-one replied".

Tumiri cannot understand since he was the person on charge of completing any
aircraft maintenance, the Pilot Miguel Quiroga co-owner of LaMia airliens,
did not brief him neither about the emergency, nor about the lack of
fuel.

"I was not called to cabin which is normally what happens when there is
failure. My duty is to refuel as required once the pilot orders, to
open and to check, but I was communicated we were going direct to
Medellin". Although he mentions that it was strange for him that they were not
completing the required stop, but he was not alerted since he believed the
pilot knew what he was doing.

In the air tragedy caused by fuel exhaustion -- irregularities are being
investigated - 71 persons died while travelling to Colombia for the Final
match of the South-American Cup [/b] where the brasilian team was facing
Atletico Nacional.

[jwocky]

Oooookaaaay, this is really weird. See, as a plane engineer, he would have known, if there was not enough fuel. But, as I pointed out, I am not really sure, the plane was out of fuel. The blackboxes didn't go to the tanks and looked for themselves, they recorded what the instruments show. Means, they show the same indormation as the pilot had.
So, the pilot didn't tell the passengers and crew about anything irregular ... maybe because there was nothing ... Then, suddenly, the lights went out and the emergency lights on. This is actually 100% consistent with the ATC recording. The pilot mentioned, he is on reserve - but the reserve should have been sufficient to land. Then suddenly, and this is before the ATC asked for the altitude and got the response 9000ft, he says, he has no fuel and the electricity is total out. Still, he can tell that via a radio the relied on electricity. So, at least some battery power was still there.
Nothing fits together but only what the radar said, what the ATC said, what the pilot said to the ATC and now, what Erwin Tumiri tells. It was all very fast. Too fast to even start a panic. The pilot was still in a steep descent configuration, Vincent saw the flaps out in the pictures. There is nothing that would actually expect to run out of fuel in the next minute. He was short, but not out of fuel. Then, basically in about ten seconds, everything changes. Tumiri and the pilot both set the loss of at least part of the electrical systems at the same time. At this time, the pilot drops too low, but he was set for 10,000ft anyway, so 9,000, and he sounds as if he realized he was on 9000 only when the ATC asked him. So this is in steep approach configuration less than 10 seconds of continued descent. Later, the one turbine I could saw in the pictures looked like it dug dig, means, it was still spinning down when it hit dirt.
Soooo, I am very aware, everybody blames the pilot, but I would really look deeper in this electrical failure.

[LesterBoffo]

Oooookaaaay, this is really weird. See, as a plane engineer, he would have known, if there was not enough fuel. But, as I pointed out, I am not really sure, the plane was out of fuel. The blackboxes didn't go to the tanks and looked for themselves, they recorded what the instruments show. Means, they show the same indormation as the pilot had.
So, the pilot didn't tell the passengers and crew about anything irregular ... maybe because there was nothing ... Then, suddenly, the lights went out and the emergency lights on. This is actually 100% consistent with the ATC recording. The pilot mentioned, he is on reserve - but the reserve should have been sufficient to land. Then suddenly, and this is before the ATC asked for the altitude and got the response 9000ft, he says, he has no fuel and the electricity is total out. Still, he can tell that via a radio the relied on electricity. So, at least some battery power was still there.
Nothing fits together but only what the radar said, what the ATC said, what the pilot said to the ATC and now, what Erwin Tumiri tells. It was all very fast. Too fast to even start a panic. The pilot was still in a steep descent configuration, Vincent saw the flaps out in the pictures. There is nothing that would actually expect to run out of fuel in the next minute. He was short, but not out of fuel. Then, basically in about ten seconds, everything changes. Tumiri and the pilot both set the loss of at least part of the electrical systems at the same time. At this time, the pilot drops too low, but he was set for 10,000ft anyway, so 9,000, and he sounds as if he realized he was on 9000 only when the ATC asked him. So this is in steep approach configuration less than 10 seconds of continued descent. Later, the one turbine I could saw in the pictures looked like it dug dig, means, it was still spinning down when it hit dirt.
Soooo, I am very aware, everybody blames the pilot, but I would really look deeper in this electrical failure.

Normally the airflow over and through the engine would have kept the fan turbines spinning.

[KL-666]

Normally the airflow over and through the engine would have kept the fan turbines spinning.

Looks like the reason why the engines ingested some dirt, without destroying the fan blades. Destructed fan blades is most often associated with power on them at impact by investigators.

Kind regards, Vincent

[KL-666]

OMG, news just reaches me that the Bolivian person who took in the flight plan, (incorrectly) accused of negligence, has sought refuge in Brazil. What kind of banana republic story are we getting in here?

Kind regards, Vincent

[KL-666]

The woman who fled to Brazil has declared that she was pressured by her superiors to alter her statement about what happened when she took in the flight plan.

If my superiors would take legal action against me when i refuse to lie, that would scare the hell out of me too, and i would flee to avoid a biased trial. See, if they are so sure of their case that they think they can get away with lying at the trial, they must have some connections at the prosecutors office. Good that she is in Brazil now, and can make a honest statement in freedom. It will benefit the investigation too.

http://www.eldeber.com.bo/santacruz/castedo-me-ordenaron-modificar-informe.html

The page also contains an image of a statement of hers, which i unfortunately could not paste in a translator.

Kind regards, Vincent

[jwocky]

Turbines and a little physics ...

if a turbine is not running but only spinning by air flow, it stops to spin when the airflow stops. Which we can assume when she eats dirt? Which means, since dirt is usually denser than air, you can usually see in this case blades as a hole pressed backwards. It's a very distinct pattern actually and you can calculate it ... well, if I could figure out how to write equations in the forum ... but basically, the force on every point on the turbine blades is at this moment an integral over the surface from f2 to f1 where f2 is the force needed to move the denser material (dirt), f1 the force needed to move the lighter material (air). You maybe remember form school days a thing called "parallelogram of forces"?

if a turbine is running with own power and hits dirt, the same thing happens the other way around. Modern engines have just so much power, they cut into the dirt faster than the dirt can move. The effect is actually a force forward. The blades bend in an arc shape outward because the screw themselves into the dirt. We can also calculate this effect, it is actually the very normal propeller formula.

For a very short time between the moment, engine power is lost and it is down to the spin of the level of airflow, she has still a higher rpm and therefore a significant f-delta when she hits dirt. She has power to screw herself some dirt in but not enough to break herself. That is why investigators actually often interpret dirt ingestion without turbine breaks as spinning down - powerless, but still spinning engine. Soooo,

... is there a slight possibility, this engine broke off the wing? Yep, it's not on the wing anymore.
... is there a slight possibility, breaking off from the wing also cut the connection to the feeder tank? Yep, the feeder tank sits in the wing, the engine wasn't connected anymore.
Sooo, aside all basic laws of physics, there are two possibilities.

a.) No fuel in the feeder tank, engine ran out of fuel. Which means, all four ran out. Now, what do you notice when you look at the distance from first impact to the site where the majority of the plane ended up with disintegrated wings? What do you notice at the main debris site?

b.) the engine ran out of fuel only when it was separated from the wing. Which would be consistent with the turbine pattern. Now, here is the quiz questions for all engineers ... how did the wings come to the main debris side, after the plane was allegedly sliding this ridge up? Just saying.

Now, we have Bolivia pressing the clerk to lie, we have Colombia telling there was no trace of fuel at the debris site ... highly unlikely, considering that there is always some unusable fuel in tanks. There is in the pictures no sooth, no sign of a explosive low power blast from tanks as I would expect if there would have been really only fumes in them.
For me, the question of the loss of electricity becomes more and more interesting, but nobody seems to be willing to look at that detail. Everybody goes .... oh the pilot is to blame (there were two why is the co-pilot never mentioned?) because he had not enough fuel (he had not enough fuel reserves to satisfy the legal requirements, that is true, but some details indicate, he had enough fuel to make it on the runway and to the apron). But with low fuel and loss of electrical systems, it was another story. Which means, in my book, the electrical failure is as much a contributing factor as low fuel, if not more, because that is what prevented the pilot from stopping the steep descent.