wrote:


I thought "retracting full flaps while below the partial-flaps stall
speed" was a more appropriate description of what happened. The answer
was all over the CAP backchannels within a week.

Dave


Actually the main cause was shutting down one inboard engine that had a
thrust reverser unstowed light, then when they pulled all the throttles back
to idle to begin their descent, whoever was manipulating the throttles mixed
up which engine was shut down and left the good inboard engine throttle at
idle the whole way down, advancing the throttle to the shut-down engine when
they needed power. The heavily loaded jet couldn't keep its airspeed up on
the thrust of only two engines.

So you are saying that they didnt stall when they retracted from full
landing flaps to approach flaps while low slow and only using two
engines? I'm not contesting anything you've said, but it doesn't
discount what I'm repeating:

My source, un-named, is posted below:
paste
It was not a bird ingestion but a "reverser unlock" on the #2 engine
that started this. They lost a C-5 with all aboard a few years back in
Germany for the same cause. This crew however shut down the engine
before an actual unstow took place. The airplane was well over 700K
gross weight with FOB of over 300K. The airplane had the newest version
of the C-5 flight deck with big panel glass. Unfortunately, only one of
the three pilots was really comfortable with the new equipment and FMS.

The crew decided because of their weight to fly their approach to the
longest runway, which unfortunately was only being served that day by a
Tacan (fancy VOR for you civilian types) approach. They also decided to
fly a full flap approach to keep the approach speed down. This isn't
prohibited--just highly discouraged. The recommended flap setting for a
three engine approach is Flaps 40. During the approach the crew became
worried about not having enough power to fly a full flap approach and
selected flaps 40--which they were now too slow for. Here's the point
all you glass cockpit guys should sit up and take notice about. The one
guy who was familiar with the new glass and FMS was also the one flying
the aircraft. He became distracted inputting the new approach speed in
the FMS. There was also some confusion about just who was flying the
A/C while he had his head down updating the speed. Long story
short--they got way slow and into the shaker, and actually stuck the
tail into the trees and it departed the aircraft first. The nose
pitched down hard and the nose and left wing impacted next snapping off
the nose. Several cockpit occupants suffered spinal compression
injuries. The guys sitting at the crew table behind the cockpit
actually came to a stop with their legs dangling out over the ground.

The miracle of this was the left outboard fuel tank was broken open and
none of that fuel managed to find something hot enough to ignite it and
the other 300k. Again, a bunch of very lucky people.

So I guess there really is a reason we bitch at guys for hand flying and
making their own MCP and FMS inputs.

end paste