Up to the Moment on the Dover C-5 Crash

As you may have seen or heard, one of those massive Air Force C-5 cargo planes crashed and broke apart while making an emergency landing this morning at Dover (Delaware) Air Force Base shortly after takeoff. All 17 crew members survived, most apparently without suffering serious injuries.

The crash of the C-5B (it is being widely and incorrectly reported as being an earlier C-5A model) is pertinent to me for three reasons:

First, I hitched rides on C-5As while bopping around the Far East many moons ago and can attest that they are indeed huge.

Second, Kiko's House is about 45 miles from Dover AFB and C-5s are a familiar sight as they begin their long-distance landing approaches. In fact, I saw one just yesterday afternoon as I worked outside. Actually, I heard it first because its engines have a distinctive high-pitched whirring sound.

Third, the ability of the Internet to bring the latest information to our doorsteps in a heartbeat never ceases to amaze me. There are some fascinating C-5 crash photos and considerable detail about what may have happened at a Web forum called AirDisaster.com

One of the things that makes the forum so interesting, at least for this novice, is that contributors seem to be a pretty expert lot and quickly deduced the possible cause of the crash: an emergency landing after an engine failure.

Meanwhile, local media are reporting that engine failure may have been due to birds and that the break-up into three pieces upon landing -- cockpit section, fuselage/wings and tail section -- may have been because the Kuwait-bound plane was fully loaded.