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Iraq-Jordan
RAF Herc 'probably shot down' by a missile fired from ground
2005-03-08
Sorry, mates. Rest well.
AN RAF Hercules plane that crashed on the day of the landmark Iraqi elections, killing all ten servicemen on board, was probably brought down by a missile. Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, said in a ministerial statement yesterday that sabotage and a bomb planted on board have been dismissed by an inquiry into the tragedy. Insurgents claimed they hit the transporter from the ground on 30 January, the day of the Iraqi elections. The minister disclosed that an interim report from the Ministry of Defence has ruled out nearly all other reasons for the incident, including sabotage and mechanical problems. An RAF board of inquiry was not yet ready to establish the exact cause of the crash, the MoD said. But it went on to rule out "bird strike, lightning strike, mid-air collision, controlled flight into the ground, wire/obstacle strike, restriction in the aircraft's flying controls, cargo explosion, engine fire, sabotage (including the use of an improvised explosive device) and aircraft fatigue." "There remain a number of other possible causes that require further investigations."
Posted by:Seafarious

#8  An RPG usually has to hit something pretty hard to explode. The aluminum on the Herc might be to thin for this and an RPG might go through. In Mogadishu, and RPG went through a truck door and almost completely through a soldier and did not explode. Ditto for an anti-tank round. It would probably go through and not explode. I can't say for certain but seems to me it was neither one of these.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2005-03-08 3:41:25 PM  

#7  Back OT the British secret weapon.
Posted by: Shipman   2005-03-08 1:08:28 PM  

#6  Back on topic - it does seem incredible that, with all the wreckage to hand, they can't tell us whether or not it was hit by a missile or other ground fire. IIUC, an anti-aircraft missile would characteristically have peppered the fuselage with shrapnel holes which ought to be fairly obvious, and, similarly, gunfire ought to have left unmistakable puncturing. What sort of impact would an RPG or other 'anti-tank missile' (as was, reportedly, originally claimed by insurgents as the cause) have had? I'm not entirely sure, but I doubt that the evidence would be hard to find.
Posted by: Bulldog   2005-03-08 12:37:55 PM  

#5  Rivrdog - reportedly, one entire wing broke off in the air, which suggests something structurally catastrophic rather than a software problem.

DWMF - yes, Hurricanes were responsible for more enemy aircraft than Spitfires during the Battle of Britain, and being wooden rather than metal were cheaper to build, but they were already close to obsolete as interceptors and fighters at that time. Despite being good in a dogfight (they could do some nifty aerobatics) they were slow and poor climbers so were relegated to using their impressive firepower on enemy bombers whilst the Spits tried to keep enemy escorts at bay - which may have helped their kill ratios relative to Spits. Later mark Spitfires were still flying and fighting at the end of the war, and beyond it, even into the fifties, when Hurricanes had long since been phased out and consigned to less challenging roles in theatres other than Western Europe.
Posted by: Bulldog   2005-03-08 12:22:39 PM  

#4  My mistake.. duly corrected.
Posted by: Howard UK   2005-03-08 11:28:41 AM  

#3  No. That's a nickname given to the Hawker Hurricane in WW2. Designed by Sir Sidney Cam. Was IMHO a more important plane than the Spitfire in the Battle of Britain, as more were manufactured, and in "bang per buck" terms, was a more effective fighter. [/history lesson]
Posted by: DWMF   2005-03-08 9:17:17 AM  

#2  Is this Herc a different model to the one I've heard RAF pilots refer to as '100 000 nuts and bolts flying in close formation'?
Posted by: Howard UK   2005-03-08 8:45:19 AM  

#1  The Herky Bird, normally a super-safe aircraft, had had some problems that no one likes to talk about. A USAF Reserve C-130H of the 939th ARRW, Portland International Airport, crashed under mysterious circumstances about ten years ago.

Initial USAF causation: the aircrew shut off the engines (the aircraft ditched into the sea, but the sea state was too rough for safe ditching, and there was almost total loss of life). The surviving crewmember couldn't shed any light on why the engines quit running, but similar accidents in the commercial flying sphere had been traced to faulty engine management computers, and some sort of engine computers had just been installed on this particular Herc.

The widows formed a pressure group, and insisted that if the USAF was going to list aircrew error as the major cause, that they do it based on actual evidence, which was lacking in this case.

The USAF retracted crew error as a primary cause, but like the Brits in this case, left it in as a gee-whiz cause.

I would think that since this aircraft crashed over the land, and all the wreckage was recovered, some accurate determination of whether a missile hit was responsible should be available.

My guess is that such evidence isn't there, so the Brits, too, have resorted to a "gee-whiz" finding.

In my book, such findings are a cop-out of the first order. If there's no direct evidence of hostile fire, such a cause MUST be ruled out.

If the Brits are going to "gee-whiz", their speculation should run towards an uncommanded fuel cut-off, by the engine computer.
Posted by: Rivrdog   2005-03-08 5:35:14 AM  

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