USA TODAY April 4, 2006
Crew survives cargo jet crash in Delaware
By Tom Vanden Brook
All 17 crewmembers aboard a massive Air Force cargo plane survived a crash landing Monday in Delaware that broke the aircraft into three pieces.
"Amazing," declared Maj. Ange Keskey, a spokeswoman with the Air Mobility Command. "We don't know why there wasn't a fire."
The C-5 Galaxy's safety features, the competence of its crew and a skidding landing prevented a more tragic accident, Air Force and military analysts said.
The C-5, at more than six stories tall and nearly the length of a football field, is one of the world's largest aircraft. It's big enough to carry tanks, helicopters and trucks. Until Monday, the military had 112 C-5s in its fleet, Keskey said.
With its tanks topped off, the C-5 can hold more than 51,000 gallons of fuel. That's enough, the Air Force says, to fill 6½ railroad tank cars.
Problems became apparent about 6:30 a.m., shortly after takeoff, said Mark Voorhis, a spokesman for the Air Mobility Command. The plane was headed for Kuwait with a stopover in Spain. The pilot circled back to Dover Air Force Base for an emergency landing, but the plane skidded and split apart about a half-mile from the runway. Emergency crews rescued the airmen and doused the jet with foam.
Fourteen members of the crew were taken to Kent General Hospital in Dover, hospital spokeswoman Ellen Shockley said. Late Monday afternoon, all but three had been released. Three other crewmembers were airlifted to Christiana Hospital in Newark and were in fair condition Monday, according to a statement on the hospital's website. The airmen on board belong to the 436th Airlift Wing and the Air Force Reserve's 512th Airlift Wing, according to the Air Force.
The Air Force is investigating the cause of the crash, Voorhis said.
An explosion and fire are not inevitable during a crash landing, said Christopher Bolkcom, a specialist in national defense at the Congressional Research Service. Aircraft fuels have been modified to prevent fires, and tanks are often protected by foam to guard against explosions, he said.
Stout, four-point restraints also can help the crew survive crash landings, he said.
"They're strapped in much better than you would see in a commercial plane," Bolkcom said. He said that a typical C-5 crew would be young and fit, enhancing their ability to survive.
Overall, the C-5 has a laudable safety record in almost 40 years of service, Keskey said. She said it has had just five major accidents.
"It's a stable aircraft," Keskey said. "We train our crewmembers on current and leading-edge safety techniques. We teach our pilots to make the right decisions."
However, the plane has had problems in the past. A C-5 crashed after takeoff in Germany in 1990, killing 13 of 70 aboard.
Since 1968, there have been 21 accidents involving C-5s in which a person has been killed, the jet has been destroyed or sustained $1 million in damage, Bolkcom said. That's about one per 100,000 hours of flight, about half of the average for all military aircraft.
John Pike of Globalsecurity.org, a defense think tank in Alexandria, Va., said that five years ago, 58% of the C-5 fleet was flyable. The rest were in the shop.
"Some things just kept breaking too much," he said.
A program to upgrade C-5 engines and other systems has increased the percentage of C-5s ready for missions to 75%, Pike said.
The fact that the jet skidded to a stop with its wings parallel to the ground probably accounts for the lack of life-threatening injuries, Bolkcom and Pike said.
"This did appear to be a crash landing as opposed to a crash," Pike said.
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