Crash recovery/investigation question
Discussion
Over Christmas Mrs ZS was watching a series on DVD (and I was half watching). One of the plots involved a charter jet crashing in a remote part of the northwest US (I assume Rocky Mountains), and then a later scene had one of the crash survivors looking at the recovered wreckage in a hangar.
Appreciate it's only a tv show so not going to be true to life, but it did get me thinking a little. I've seen pictures of reconstructed aircraft, but always assumed the wreckage was "easy" to access (ie. over land, close to civilisation). In cases like the tv show above, is it realistic that they'd recover most of the wreckage from a remote wilderness, as I'd assume it would involve considerable expense and heavy airlift equipment, if even physically possible at all?
And as an extension of my question above, what would determine if an aircraft is recovered and the extent/depth of any investigation?
Appreciate it's only a tv show so not going to be true to life, but it did get me thinking a little. I've seen pictures of reconstructed aircraft, but always assumed the wreckage was "easy" to access (ie. over land, close to civilisation). In cases like the tv show above, is it realistic that they'd recover most of the wreckage from a remote wilderness, as I'd assume it would involve considerable expense and heavy airlift equipment, if even physically possible at all?
And as an extension of my question above, what would determine if an aircraft is recovered and the extent/depth of any investigation?
Assembling wreckage for an investigation is something that only tends to be done if it is felt it will help with finding the cause or if the need to find the cause of the accident is of paramount importance. The most famous wreckage reconstruction of them all is probably that of the Comet 1 airliner that crashed in the Med.
A massive and costly effort was made to get as much as the wreckage as possible. And that was back in the mid 1950s.
A massive and costly effort was made to get as much as the wreckage as possible. And that was back in the mid 1950s.
In the UK, the AAIB investigate most serious or fatal air accidents, and they endeavour to rebuild the aircraft in one of their hangars at Farnborough, to help determine the cause.
Even something that is blown into millions of tiny pieces, such as the Pan Am Flight 103, was largely reconstructed. Painstaking work though.
Even something that is blown into millions of tiny pieces, such as the Pan Am Flight 103, was largely reconstructed. Painstaking work though.
I watched a few episodes of that tv series, but it was so turgid and melodramatic I gave up on it. Sort of the opposite of the threads question, I was intrigued exactly how they got all the wreckage TO the remote looking crash sites though, to make the program.
Some of them are huge chunks of fuselage, so unless it is all made in a film studio the logistics must be pretty intense.
Some of them are huge chunks of fuselage, so unless it is all made in a film studio the logistics must be pretty intense.
The techniques for reconstructing wreckage began in World War 2. Ironically, the first large scale reconstruction project undertaken wasn't of an aeroplane at all. It was a project to rebuild a V2 rocket from the wreckage of a test missile that went off course from the research site at Peenemunde and crashed in neutral Sweden.
They put together the bits and piece on a wood and chicken wire frame in an effort to get a handle on the size and shape of the missile before it broke up.
They put together the bits and piece on a wood and chicken wire frame in an effort to get a handle on the size and shape of the missile before it broke up.
Eric Mc said:
The techniques for reconstructing wreckage began in World War 2. Ironically, the first large scale reconstruction project undertaken wasn't of an aeroplane at all. It was a project to rebuild a V2 rocket from the wreckage of a test missile that went off course from the research site at Peenemunde and crashed in neutral Sweden.
They put together the bits and piece on a wood and chicken wire frame in an effort to get a handle on the size and shape of the missile before it broke up.
How did they know what shape and size to make the wood and chicken wire frame?They put together the bits and piece on a wood and chicken wire frame in an effort to get a handle on the size and shape of the missile before it broke up.
Yertis said:
Eric Mc said:
The techniques for reconstructing wreckage began in World War 2. Ironically, the first large scale reconstruction project undertaken wasn't of an aeroplane at all. It was a project to rebuild a V2 rocket from the wreckage of a test missile that went off course from the research site at Peenemunde and crashed in neutral Sweden.
They put together the bits and piece on a wood and chicken wire frame in an effort to get a handle on the size and shape of the missile before it broke up.
How did they know what shape and size to make the wood and chicken wire frame?They put together the bits and piece on a wood and chicken wire frame in an effort to get a handle on the size and shape of the missile before it broke up.
They were very clever
First of all, they had aerial reconnaissance photographs from which they were able to get a good idea of the overall length and width of the object.
Secondly, the missile had a particular shape which followed a set of curved lines. Some of the wreckage was large enough and intact enough to allow them to work out the gradient of the curved body - which in turn aided in setting the dimensions.
The fins were recovered in more or less one piece and the relationship of the fins to the overall length of the vehicle was clear from the aerial photographs.
Using this data they were able to set up the basic framework on which they attached the recovered bits.
Eric Mc said:
There is a company in California that supplies aircraft parts to the film and TV industry for programmes such as this.
Yes, they are here, just outside Victorville: https://goo.gl/maps/s7Nr8o94pswIf you're ever driving between LA and Vegas go and check it out, we did last summer.
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