VSTOLG4

The second half of that youtube video above is going to help the investigation big time. Scary to see an airplane yaw around a turn like that and even scarier to watch the results. RIP aviators.

A Squared

Yes, seeing that it was yawing well before it was rolling would seem to point away from aileron malfunction or asymmetric flap condition.

trip

It looked like a power application on the right side as indicated by exhaust smoke followed by the VMC roll.

BDGERJMN

Dirty, I'm sorry for your loss. Very difficult to watch that. My hope is that the mishap investigation will glean something all Herc (and similar airframe) crews can learn from in prevention of future mishaps.

My thoughts and prayers to the crew, families/friends and squadron with a very difficult loss/circumstances!

joepilot

The aircraft will be fully mission capable. On paper.

The engines will have been exchanged for the oldest, most trouble prone engines on the base. Same with the radar and radios.

Joe

hydrostream

The helicopter I flew there went straight to the shredder and only a few of them were put into shrink wrap. We definitely stripped them of the mission equipment too, even the ones being stored. They were as bare bones as we could get them.

Han Solo

I noticed that as well.

Exactly. The one jet I took to the boneyard was safe per the forms but you know MX put the most troublesome parts into that jet before it left. In addition, the mission gear was in shambles and much of it didn't work.

Castle Bravo

I took 2 jets to the Bone Yard (one of which, Ghost Rider, has returned to service). They were stripped down to min equipment required for flight for min crew (all extra ejection seats removed, etc), but MX did not install or swap out any older parts just to send it the Bone Yard.
We still had snow in the wheel wells when we landed in Arizona, so the Bone Yard civilians had a snowball fight before it all melted.

nfnsquared

Yeah, the G-model BUFF that I flew to the boneyard was definitely not mission ready. No engines were swapped or anything like that, but the nav systems were stripped and the flight was flown unpressurized, at/below 10K....

It was like a giant tweet flight.

Hueypilot

The WC-130Hs started out as E-models and were modified into HC-130Hs before being further modified into WC-130Hs.

They are basically Super Es. They have many of the sub-systems of the E (GTC/ATM, etc), but have the -15 engines of the H.

The only thing we know here is they departed controlled flight. What precipitated that is unknown at this time. There's rumor out there they were having some kind of propulsion problem, which would make sense given the yaw in the video. However, a large range of problems could have caused that...everything from mechanical problems to improper pilot inputs during a mechanical failure. It could've been a combination of a VMCA roll and a stall. Time will tell. No sense in getting too invested in any particular theory.

Until the AIB/SIB is released, just pray for the families left behind.