CI MD-11 Crash

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Member for

24 years 3 months

Posts: 920

Just had a brief look at a-net this morning and found the thread about the CI MD-11 accident in '99 when the wing hit the runway and the aircraft flipped over.

Apparently a video exists of the event, filmed by another pilot and the video link is in that thread. I don't know why, but I clicked on the link and true enough, there is footage there of the accident happening.

Not a nice sight I can tell you but interesting in the fact that footage like this is very rare. I don't know if I can post the link here, so I suggest you have a look at page one of a-net if you are interested.

All this said, I feel morbid for looking.:(

Original post

Member for

24 years 3 months

Posts: 11,159

Amazingly there were only 3 fatalities I gather ?

Member for

24 years 3 months

Posts: 920

Incredible Ren given the fireball in the footage.

Member for

20 years 6 months

Posts: 10,625

Truely Horrific.

However, I must say, contrary to all descriptions and accounts on this crash, the right wingtip was clearly above the ground when the wing exploded. It looks like it was a very hard landing, resulting perhaps in an engine strike and gear seperation.

Member for

20 years 9 months

Posts: 718

I believe this was a hard landing followed by WING separation. Evidently this was not the first time this had happened to an MD11 under similar circumstances, though I suppose if you fly anything into the ground hard enough it will break. Didn't someone punch the main gear through the wing of an RAF tristar a few years back when they landed "a bit high" ?

Member for

24 years 3 months

Posts: 854

It was filmed by an off duty Cathay Pilot. It was during a Typhoon here in Hong Kong in 1999. The Captain of the MD-11 was an Italian who retired after the crash. It was indeed a wing stike that caused it to flip over, but it took 7 seconds from the wing stike to the plane to come to rest upside down.

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20 years 6 months

Posts: 10,625

the Wing strike must have followed the cause of the crash.. as you can clearly see, the wing does not touch the gound untill after a fire errupts inboard of the right wing

Member for

24 years 3 months

Posts: 320

can someone please either pm or email the web site that this is on to have a look.

Member for

20 years 7 months

Posts: 372

can someone please either pm or email the web site that this is on to have a look.

Me too.