Transair Cargo Plane Crash

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

A Transair cargo night flight crashed last night in the ocean off Honolulu.  The plane was on route to Maui. 
Both pilots were recused, injured but alive.
I wanted to add a heads up about the cargo - - I'm having trouble getting details this morning but Transair did have the US Postal Service contract a few years ago.  Not sure if they still have for 2021.  The plane was headed to Maui, I've been unable to determine if that flight was also supposed to continue to Hilo.  I'll post more if I can find out.

So - - I don't know for certain that the plane carried mail, or that it was headed to Hilo, but if you are expecting any time sensitive letters or parcels you might want to watch the news or check your tracking numbers.  Give it a few days, hopefully it's not a problem. 

Hopefully the pilots are released from the hospital soon in good health.  Taking off in a heavily weighted down cargo plane with a full load of fuel, one engine quits, the other engine failing over the black Pacific Ocean at night, then landing on water so they could exit the plane is nothing short of miraculous.  Those guys are some phenomenal pilots.

[Obie]

They didn't have full load of fuel for a 23 minute flight .

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

23 minute flight 

Was it just to Maui, refill and return to Honolulu?
I still don’t know the flight plan, but if it was HNL>OGG>ITO>HNL it would be a longer trip.  The cargo flights fly all night, not sure how many flights total, but would they tank up once, or repeatedly throughout the night?  Cargo planes are generally more heavily weighted than passenger flights, depending on what they carry.  A 737 can fly several thousand miles, so traveling inter-island the tanks most likely weren’t pinned F on the fuel gauge, but probably with the maximum amount of fuel used for island hopping.  Whatever the fullness or % of full - - it’s a pretty skillful landing don’t you think? 

(Disclaimer:  I shipped cargo for many years with Aloha Cargo & Hawaiian so have seen their procedure and talked with the agents about the process.  Obie certainly knows more about the actual maintenance of the planes and their operation, like refueling, etc. so I hope he weighs in)

[TomK]

They didn't have full load of fuel for a 23 minute flight .

The coastguard helicopter crew that rescued one of the pilots and helped rescue the other said there was a lot of jet fuel on the ocean around the wreckage, so I doubt they ran out of fuel. That doesn't rule out fuel contamination though.

https://youtu.be/z7s-yxH2xHQ

[Obie]

They reported to ATC that they had 2 hours of fuel. Minimum fuel requirements are enough fuel for the 23 minute flight plus 45 minutes of extra fuel.
The 2 hours of fuel would make them legal to fly to OGG and also return to HNL.
That flight goes from HNL to OGG and return to HNL it does not come to Hilo.
You can hear the entire ATC recording here:

https://tinyurl.com/5795aft8

The flight lasted less than 15 minutes and they almost made it to Barbers Point for an emergency landing.

[SBH]

The pilots remained pretty calm during the emergency, but there was some confusion with the tower …

https://youtu.be/B3fpQcRSnFE

https://www.yahoo.com/news/flight-record...52965.html

[TomK]

My understanding is that the HNL controller was working various frequencies so would have been busy even though it was early morning. I think she did a pretty good job, as, I suspect, did the pilots. The one thing that might have made a big difference and avoided all the confusion is if the pilots had declared a mayday. They didn't do that according to the ATC recording and had they done so early on I suspect much of the confusion would have been avoided.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Photos of sections of the plane on the ocean floor:

https://www.khon2.com/local-news/ntsb-re...west-oahu/

[AaronM]

New diving attraction?

[TomK]

If you can dive to a depth of 400-ft then I guess it might be.