An overspeed with a failure to pitch lock and a runaway propeller can cause a severe yawing motion and application of power makes it worse, as does any increase in airspeed.

 

According to one witness aircraft impacted flat. Base on the condition of the tail/rudder I'm inclined to agree. Maybe trying to recover from whatever occurred and just ran out of altitude. My .02.

 

The video shows vertical and rolling but it does look like the roll might have stopped and pitch up started at the last moment.

 

FWIW, my first reaction on seeing the pictures of the wreckage was that it must have hit in a fairly level attitude.

 

Something else to consider is that historically [not saying it's the case here] when an aircraft is prepped for a flight to the boneyard, especially to meet the ax [vs flyable storage] they are often stripped to various degrees and also low time/cycle components are removed and replaced with high time/cycle, sometimes nearly run out components.

As an example, I know of a flight, many years ago, where a ferry crew delivered a 4 engine jet airliner for demolition. Besides being prepped for its 2 Hr last flight, it had been stripped to the point of being a lighter weight than even the factory had ever flown one; so the crew had to extrapolate data... And flying with essentially a ferry kit of instruments.

Apparently this accident aircrew was very experienced, as is typical of these sorts of flights; so I am of the opinion that this was not likely pilot error, more likely something they did not have the ability to deal with.

God bless this crew, and all of our troops...

 

Ok I guess I’m wrong. I had a few hours in an old 65 model WC and that one was an E. Because of that I figured they were all Es. I’m going to stop speculating because I have no idea what went wrong or even what model Herk it was.

 

Definitely an "H" model. After they left Keesler, they were sent to Willow Grove ARS for storage. Once we had our E models taken away, and then the 4 H-3 loaners taken away (2 to C Springs; 2 to Niagara) in late 2006/early 2007, we got permission to fly the WC-130H's. There were no rollers in them, so not much chance of carrying cargo... we flew them on off station trainers and simply to maintain currency (kind of like a flying club at that point). Eventually it was discovered that a few of them had some serious cracks in the wing structure (don't remember exactly where, and I think two were pretty much no longer flyable). Once Willow Grove closed, the remaining WC-130's went to the TN (Nashville) ANG and I guess on to the PRANG after TN. I think most of them had the modified nose for the fulton recovery system, as they actually started out as HC-130's... They were old then and I was surprised to hear they're still being used, esp considering the fact (at the time), that putting rollers in them was out of the question and they're usefulness was severely limited (considering AF mobility operations and the missions we fly and the way we move/handle cargo). I wish they'd been retired earlier and we weren't having this conversation today.

 

It may be too soon, but I think this is going to expedite the discussion about the fate of the flying mission for the PRANG. It's been a decade and a half of back and forth regarding the follow-on mission and potential outright flying mission loss. At least such has been the case since they lost the fighters.

RC-26s were discussed back a while ago but a certain congressional delegation were apendage-blocking PR from having them because one Congressperson flies them (or used to) in his home state (RUMINT). At any rate, for a while it looked like the flying mission was over for the unrepresented territory of Puerto Rico, flying these sloppy third hand me down airframes. Local leadership apparently had insisted in the push for Hs due to having the extra crews (a J model or RC mission would represent aircrew job losses for the wing, so political interests abound).

This accident changes the game imo. Hopefully it galvanizes an improvement in conditions, though it could very well likely represent complete and permanent ANG mission loss for the territory on account of lack of political top cover. What else is new with colonialism....And I digress.

 

As critical as the Caribbean is I don't see why the USAF doesn't have an active-duty base at the old Ramey AFB with a Guard unit as tenant. Same for the Navy base at Roosevelt Roads and their associated Air Station. And why would you have decrepit C-130s with wing cracks as weather airplanes? Surely they were not asked to fly into hurricanes in those things?

 

Those tails aren't currently flying the weather reconnaissance mission. They did in a past life.