@ymb1 I can't find any good photos either. I gleaned a few from different photos.

@TomMcW those in the background to the left?

You can see them here on the left, the red things. They're not full on jetbridges. They're uncovered sets of motorized rollers. As you can see, they've stopped using them at this point and moved the plane parking back from the building.

ah I see

Here's one in use. It has a scissor jack at the end

maybe they're not good because they force you to load the rear first if you don't have a loader at the rear already, especially with tail-heavy planes

A screen grab from Google earth shows that the equipment has now been removed

(Y)

a loader the size of a 747's deck would be awesome, it would carry the ULD's in the exact order required, and just slide it via the nose, but we need a similar system for the lower-deck. time to build a new plane! nose loading both decks

@ymb1 You're stuck loading rear first anyway. There's only one cargo door on the upper deck. (Well, 747 has the nose door too)

I wonder if some exec's ran the numbers and got in touch with manufacturers, it'll be the equivalent to south-west's fast turnarounds :D

unload, load, 40+ ULDs in 10 minutes tops

@ymb1 They obviously decided it wasn't worth the expense.

@TomMcW maybe it's in the works? :D

I'm kidding of course

problem with that system is it can't serve many planes at once, if each parking spot had its own gigantic loader, then the whole system will break apart

it's just for the cool factor :D

imagine driving a 747-sized flatbed truck / loader on the ramp

And if it broke you'd have to move the plane to load it with a different loader

@ymb1 The one time I saw them use the 747 nose door they were loading a Bell 47 helicopter. It had been disassembled and was strapped down to a cookie sheet but the boom still stuck of the end

I see

The nose door is cool because when it's partially open it looks like the plane is happy

other way around is sad

cdn-www.airliners.net/photos/airliners/6/8/2/0191286.jpg?v=v40

That is sad

engineer taxied with engines 2/3 not 1/4 he didn't have hydraulic pressure to brake or steer

was repositioning i believe

probably no bad work day can match this guy's that day

ops, there goes $300M

@ymb1 Oh man. Can we say FIRED!

@ymb1 During my last week at the hub I came way closer than I would like to an aircraft strike. I made another guy's pull for him and found out he hadn't properly hooked the last two baggage carts and they came unhooked on the ramp. I heard guys yelling and looked to see my loose carts rolling in slow motion towards a DC-10. Fortunately the guys that were yelling were able to stop them

phew!

@ymb1 Yeah. Wanted to kill that guy

@falstro It says Stack Exchange by the top left corner of the box with the question, I didn't post that, any ideas as to why and how it was posted by 'Stack Exchange' though?

@anonymous all meta questions are automatically posted in chat.

@falstro oh ok

wow, there's a video posted on avh showing the lamia crash site, they really did come down right next to the VOR.

@Farhan @voretaq7 can we get the tag merge and the pop-up? :prettyplease: meta.aviation.stackexchange.com/q/3148/1467 meta.aviation.stackexchange.com/q/3147/1467

@abelenky I thought they were holding at the VOR? And the inbound leg of the holding pattern is the same course as the final approach. When the pilot realized/decided he couldn't wait, if he just turned onto the final approach course it would take him straight to the VOR anyway (and then on to the runway).

@abelenky the resolute bay crash comes to mind, but I can't remember if they were actually tracking the VOR or if it was a coincidence. In this case they were holding over the VOR so it's not that strange.

And if I'm reading the approach plate on avherald correctly, in the 'worst' case a holding aircraft would be 18nm from the runway at 12,000'. Airport elevation is 4921', so they had 18nm to glide 7000' which is a 15:1 glide ratio.

And that's the absolute worst case within the holding parameters: avherald suggests they were actually higher, so they would have had a more favorable ratio. Whatever the details (and the wind), it seems like they should have been able to get a lot further than they did before crashing.

geesh, then I guess that makes the pilot screwup even worse?

If he had just gone for the airport when he lost power, he may have been able to glide it in? Instead, he stuck in a hold with no power at all?

Can't wait to see animations from the Black Box on this one.

@abelenky Oops, I looked at the wrong airport details: elevation at SKRG is actually 7025', so the worst case glide ratio is 21:1. But I don't know what altitude they were really at when they lost power, so I have no idea what the actual number was.

Even the longer holding pattern is only 8 miles from the VOR, so it still seems odd that they didn't get further. This is where the investigation comes in: maybe there was some other mechanical issue, or terrain got in the way, or they just didn't set up for best glide properly, or who knows what.

@abelenky If the information online about fuel planning is accurate, they were already running on fumes when they arrived. The pilot should have declared an emergency and gone straight for the runway. He could even have stayed high for as long as possible, then spiralled down over the airport.

But of course it's easy for me - and anyone else - to say that now, I don't know what situation he really had to deal with.

well, from various early reports, he got himself into an unfavorable situation via bad planning, made it worse, then made it fatal. I will honestly be surprised if anything "happened" to him that he didn't do to himself.