Plane Crashes Near Dover Air Force Base in Delaware

[Midnight Mike]

Fox News is reporting that a C5 Galaxy has crashed near Dover Air Force Base......


Cargo Plane Crashes at Dover Air Base
2 minutes ago
A C-5 cargo plane with 17 people aboard crashed near the Dover Air Force Base Monday morning, according to a state public safety official.

There is no word on fatalities but Department of Public Safety assistant director Allen Metheny said some injuries have been reported. Some patients are being taken to a local hospital and others were being taken to a trauma center.

It's not clear if the plane was landing or taking off when it crashed around 6:45 a.m.

An Associated Press correspondent at the scene says the cockpit separated from the rest of the fuselage. The cockpit is facing west and the larger piece of fuselage with the wing facing northeast. He says there is no sign of a tail assembly.

The C-5 is one of the Air Force's largest cargo planes and is designed to carry very heavy cargo loads on transcontinental deployments.

[NIKV69]

On CNN now, nose and tail are broken off. CNN is saying the plane tried to return after takeoff.

[USAF Pilot 07]

From what I've heard there were no reported casualties and several people were able to walk away from the crash. Also, the aircraft was operated by a Reserve crew, contrary to what CNN is saying was a ANG crew.

The aircraft apparently lost it's #2 engine. Seeing as how this would have not been as big of a deal had it happened further in-flight, I would imagine this probably happened sometime on the takeoff roll or shortly there after.

[Iberia A340-600]

Glad know one died. Sad though that a C-5 was lost. I live near SWF and see them all the time flying over my house and school. I just saw one 30 minutes ago over my school.

[cancidas]

damn thing looks like a beached whale!! though i must say, kudos to lockheed for building an airplane that can crash and still remain intact the way it did.... wonder how many cycles on tha tplane.

[Matt Molnar]

Amazing there was no fire. Did they forget to fuel it?

[USAF Pilot 07]

Amazing there was no fire. Did they forget to fuel it?

Looks like it was on the grass, may have been saturated from morning dew, maybe some rain in the area before.

Latest I heard, there was a flameout in the #2 engine on takeoff, meaning the bird probably didn't make it far off the ground. The gas probably just spilled, and since there wasn't an existing fire to ignite it, it didn't light.

I think Hollywood just over-dramatized plane crashes in that every plane crash has to have a fire somewhere around it or the like...

[USAF Pilot 07]

From what I posted in another thread:

Ok, so I talked with a CMSGT who's actually a Flight Engineer on the C-5 with over 5,000 hours today, and actually flew that exact aircraft last week.

He said the aircraft was in Maintenance at Robbins AFB in GA last week for structural work, and was flown back to Dover on Wednesday.

The aircraft was en-route from Dover to Germany, with a takeoff time around 0645. After takeoff the crew, who this Chief knew every one of and is good friends with, was alerted with a problem with the reverse thruster on Engine #2. The flight crew decided to turn back to the airport to have it checked out, and although they were under an emergency situation, didn't seem overly concerned with the problem. What happens next is kind of a mystery in that the plane landed short of the runway and broke off into three pieces.
The tail split off upon inpact, and the plane skidded along the grass and eventually the left was caught the ground and the aircraft did a spin, upon which the fuselage broke into 2 pieces.

The pilot and co-pilot both suffered injuries in that they had compressed spinal disks, and the FE broke his pelvis from what I heard.

Funny story: the backup FE was standing during the crash landing in the flight deck but didn't suffer any injuries.
Another funny story: the 2 loadmasters were sitting at a table facing each other in the upper deck on the C-5. When the fuselage broke into 2, it split the table right down the middle and each of the Loadmasters were pretty much hanging over the edge of the aircraft looking 30 feet down thinking the other person was gone. Luckily neither one of htem suffered injury.

Also, it was either the FE standing or one of the loadmasters, but their "callsign" was Lucky, and they didnt suffer any injuries.


Anyway, hope this helps shed some light on the crash. A crash team is being assembled and will hopefully figure out what exactly happened to the plane.