AN-12 crash, again
This is an Anotonov AN-12 that crashed at Mbuji Mayi airport on January 24 of this year. There were no fatalities. The aircraft landed hard enough to break both wings and a small fire started. The small fire soon turned into a very large fire because the aircraft was transporting fuel. There is nothing left of the airplane now.
The photo and info I pulled off the net. I've not been able to talk to anyone who has first hand knowledge of the accident.
posted by Carl at 2:02 AM
5 Comments:
Dear Carl,
My name is Kurt Wayne, and my wife family and I live in Bentonville, AR where we own a "bricks-and-clicks" retail business.
I'm working to get my city to adopt Kinshasa as a sister city. I don't know if it will ever happen, but I think it could be intriguing.
I've also been to Africa (Nigeria) and know that for all its promise, the DRC is much worse off than that nation (which had more than enough problems at the time, 1992).
But it still intrigues me...hope to be able to ask you some questions some day.
God bless.
I've got one question already, Carl.
It's understood how the DRC is bisected by the equator, and of the constant rainfall on one side or the other which causes the mighty Congo River to be, well, mighty.
I've heard stories of boat travelers (european or American) who describe intense thunderstorms they encounter. I've also heard stories of storms in the more temperate southern areas that supposedly produce goose egg sized hail at times. There are reports of a tornado which hit a village in Congo that Baptist aid agencies in America responded to. Here's a picture of a waterspout on Lake Kivu, though it's hard to tell whether that's a Florida-keys style fair weather waterspout or a tornadic one.
Here's my question (probably my last "meterological" one, I promise)...as a pilot, do you see (and have to fly around) rotating Congolese supercell thunderstorms as one might see in the American great plains, or are these storms organized differently?
Thanks.
Kurt:
i am not so well versed in wx as to be able to provide any technical explanations or descriptions of the storms here. at the risk of advertising my ignorance i will just describe it as i see it.
there are no fronts here so all the storms develop in place. they move some but not very fast; what movement there is, is almost always east to west.
where they differ, is that a storm that develops in place in the US don't cover that great an area. here, the storm develops over a huge area, 100 by 100 miles or more. it may be that several storms grow together but it seems from my point of view that one just grows into a monster.
that waterspout photo is good.
Thanks, Carl!
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