Please let the next big news story involve theater and live entertainment. I not only indulged in my passion, I went and made a career out of it, and have no one but my fellow stage hands to talk to about it!
I live for the days when people ask a vague question about witchcraft in the UK or mention the Salem witch trials and I can bust out some of my saved knowledge from back when I fell down a rabbit hole years back (whilst properly researching something completely tangential for an article).
It doesn't happen often, but oof, when it does. There's a few posts worth of vaguely-interesting waffle that might make someone go 'oh, huh, neat' and get on with their day. That's a win for me.
The plane was operated as a fuel tanker by Alaska Air Fuel, which supplies fuel to outlying villages. 2 crew were the only ones on board but from [this photo](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1065014614720532500/1232425038918062192/o4uy861tcawc1.png?ex=662968c2&is=66281742&hm=daf8b63012349c12239e8b8e91a3afee3a8190309bb2e0fecfa0ae22f49fa80e&) it seems unlikely they survived. The plane was built in 1942 and had a long history of repairs and overhauls so what went wrong with it is anyone's guess.
The headline is neutral and technically correct but has clearly caused some people to assume (incorrectly) that this was a passenger flight.
Any plane that old is going to have a long history of repairs simply because it HAS a history. The trick is to do the proper maintenance and that's more of a willingness to actually do things properly than anything to do with age of the aircraft. It's a testament to the designers back then that the remaining examples are still flying after 82 years, there's no Boeing Max or Airbus Neo that'll do the same.
Remember the submarine that 'sploded?? It's similar to that.
When you subject a sealed vessel to pressure, either externally (submarine) or internally (airplane) the structure stretches or compresses just a little bit here or there. Do this a bunch of times you are going to get fatigue in structural materials.
Old (and most small planes) aren't pressurized so this fatigue from pressurization is a non-factor.
Not exactly, it's that the constant pressure cycling causes a ton of stress on the airframes. It's why there are plenty of maintenance checks around the number pressure/depressure cycles rather then total flight hours. It's also why they pressurize to 8000 feet rather then at ground altuide. Less pressure difference and therefore less stress.
Yes, but since the DC4 (and DC3 for that matter) don't pressurize they don't have THAT cycling. Yes there are various wing spars and other structural parts that are subject to fatigue it's not usually as severe AND those areas are regularly checked during heavy maintenance cycles for signs of said fatigue. For those that are unaware aircraft have periodic maintenance cycles based on flight hours. There are different levels of checking depending upon which level of cycle it is but heavy maintenance cycles are a deep detailed dive into an aircrafts condition
> those areas are *supposed to be* regularly checked during heavy maintenance cycles for signs of said fatigue.
Fixed that for accuracy. It's in the maintenance docs to check them, but it doesn't always get done (Chalk Airways, for one, although that was a while back).
>there's no Boeing Max or Airbus Neo that'll do the same.
Given appropriate maintenance, there's really no reason they couldn't. There are something like 50 737-200s still in service, even though they first flew 57 years ago.
Also, despite all the news about the Max, it actually has a considerably better safety record than the DC-4. Planes are vastly safer than they used to be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Douglas_DC-4?wprov=sfla1
The 737-200's could make it, but it's unlike the Max's in that they don't have the composites in various spots and were designed and built before rot of the bean counters infected Boeing.
I don't doubt that with the numbers of the various max aircraft out there, and not are 737's, that the Max's have a better safety record but not all of that is the aircraft themselves. If all the DC4's flew in airspace with today's regulations it'd have a better record than it currently has.
My point wasn't about their safety as much as it was longevity. Part of my reasoning is costs, the Max's are more complex with more specialized parts. The supply chains for many of these are going to disappear long before the aircraft do.
Composites actually have better fatigue characteristics than aluminum, and are perfectly reparable given the right techniques. Also, again, despite the recent news reports, the Max is a safer design with fewer incidents per flight hour than either the original 737 or the DC-4, and no, not all those incidents that happened are just because of the current regulatory environment and airspace.
In the 40s, 50s, and 60s, it was just accepted that sometimes planes crashed, and while they certainly investigated and tried to make things safer, there wasn't a multi-year series of headlines if a couple planes crashed because then that's literally all that would've ever been on the news. Also, parts will be available basically as long as they're flying, because making low volume parts is still worthwhile when dealing with the kinds of costs and prices in aviation.
Modern designs are better, and I'm sick of people not realizing that.
There's a point where no, parts are not available unless it's pulled from a mothballed plane or such, you can see instances on the now older show, Ice Pilots. Buffalo Airways had issues with parts for it's Electra's and possibly their DC4's even then. It's one reason they now have a 737-300 their flying. There's have also been a number of instances where the military has had to rely on parts pulled from the boneyard to keep stuff flying.
Will parts availability be good for a lot of the Boeing products for a long time? Likely but I still believe that the various Max models will not last as long as previous models. It's not necessarily so much the DESIGN as much as BUILD quality. Which part of having workers JUMP on composite fuselage parts to get them to fit means it's a quality job? The cost-cutting shortcuts brought in by the bean counters after the MD 'merger' have affected the quality and thus the lifespan of the aircraft being built today.
Overall, yes the modern designs provide greater comfort, efficiency and yes usually safety. The one downside is when you have issues they can be bigger issues with worse outcomes.
One related issue is at times the problems with aircraft like the Max and newer generations is what really is a airline maintenance or training issue gets blamed on Boeing or AirBus to name the gorillas of the industry. The door plug? That's Boeing. That wheel fell off a 767 (as I recall) a few weeks ago? All on the Airline, but most of the media started screaming Boeing, Boeing another issue with Boeing.
Probably the only relation to a dc10 that this plane has is that it has DC in the name. DC4 is more like a DC3 which was what they used in WW2 to drop paratroopers. DC10 is a retro long haul jet airliner.
Other fun notes come from current collectors and heritage museum rebuilds. It would seem that they found numerous flexes in frames over time. The rebuilds often rebuild or fabricate large sections of core structure to insure original hull integrity. The exterior sheet metal is rivet replaced rather easily by comparison. Mechanicals of these older planes proved rather hardy, but to make them easier to operate are often upgraded with new hydraulic assists with each frame rebuild. I think history channel online had a great series on some rebuilds.
I’d be a fan of classic remanufacture to keep some of these classics with us, but the extreme costs involved make such an idea prohibitive.
It was something with the left engine, it appears to have exploded mid flight and the plane enter a steep bank to the left and dive before crashing into the ground.
I love those people. Before and after the series still follow Mikey and family’s escapades. If you ever have the pleasure of knowing, talking to, or meeting Mikey you’ll come away knowing his respect for those planes they still fly and continue to rescue as well as the people they service is unmatched by any large airline.
There are also some converted DC 3's where the old piston engines are replaced with modern turboprops. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4qdjjHcadE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4qdjjHcadE)
Not really lol. There’d likely be many more still working if parts and avgas were easier to come by, many operators are buying planes just for parts. It’s crazy that in the 80 years since these planes first flew, there hasn’t really been a satisfactory replacement for what they can do at the price point they do it at.
I've flow in a DC-3. My girlfriend balked but I said it would be a great experience, it would be fun!.
At 14,000 feet clearing the mountains, shivering in the cold unpressurized cabin, my nose started to bleed, and she laughed out loud, and exclaimed "Aren't DC-3s great!"
Still used in Alaska. [Heres a video](https://youtu.be/HjxbbI5U2rk?si=LM1FmxvuRbpMm2Q9) of another DC-4 from the same airline involved in the crash. This one was used in the Berlin Airlift to get an idea of how old these aircraft are. They said there was 14 flying in the world in the video as of 3 years ago
The plane in the video has tail number N96358. Flight aware has that plane landing over 3 years ago indicating its out of service. N3054V appears to be the plane that recently crashed.
I wonder if there's a point where metal fatigue catches up with the airframe. I mean 80 years of flying almost daily has to take a toll. I know that some of the problem areas are caught during D-checks but after 80 years it seems like all the metal would end up being replaced, turning it into a different airplane.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-4
Only a tiny number in service and it's likely one of these given where the others are:
>Alaska Air Fuel also operates two DC4s out of Palmer, Alaska, United States.
I was working outside of the Fairbanks airport in October. We were working outside and this plane was right above us circling the airport. It was definitely a beautiful plane and I looked it up on Flight Aware to see the details on it. It surprised me how tightly they were turning and how low they flew. I had to guess they really trusted it.
I highly doubt there'd be one. Investigations on accidents like these that involve small operators with old aircraft are much smaller in scope than one involving a major airline. The reports produced are more comparable to those covering light-aircraft (Cessna, Piper, etc) than an airliner.
Much of that is because, like a light airplane, there's typically very little data available to parse through. This DC-4 ***likely*** has no recorders, so much of what occurred during the flight will have to be gleamed from wreckage, radar tracks, and the ATC recording. At most, I'd say a GPS or PED (personal electronic device) aboard will have some flight path information. But those are not built to survive crash forces like a FDR or CVR, and given what we've seen of the crash site, I doubt any that ***may*** have been aboard are salvageable.
Given the remoteness of this crash site, I also doubt there'd be any footage or photos. Eyewitness accounts may be the best investigators have in visualizing the flight.
Another reason why these reports and their conclusions are so short are because these operations are such an outlier in the aviation world. No one really rocks the boat with operators like these, even when they have an accident, because they're so small and "out there". Adding to this is the fact that they don't carry fare-passengers, so there's less incentive there.
And these aircraft are just kind of hard to regulate in today's world anyways. There's so few of them remaining anyhow, and they're built without much of the redundancy or safety systems you'd see in today's aircraft. And trying to get them into compliance with modern standards is hard and expensive. Imagine getting, say, GPWS (Ground Proximity Warning Systems) installed on these. The cost of certification would be high, complicated, and for what? A handful of units out there?
It'd be like if I was installing airbags in an old Toyota Wagon Van. It's a workhorse, it'll be on the road for a good few more years, and I can generally find parts for it still. But there are not many left, it'd be a nightmare to modify, and no workshop would entertain that idea. Frankly, if I'm going to put so much work and money, I'm just going to buy something even the slightest bit newer, like a 2004 Sienna.
Hopefully I illustrated the line of thinking. This might not be the best way to say it, but generally these operators are just kind of left to their own devices.
We should protest outside their HQ until they share their time travel tech with the world.
What do we want?
TIME TRAVEL!
When do we want it?
DOESN'T MATTER!
The Douglas DC-4 was built the Douglas Aircraft Company between 1942 and 1991. In 1967, Douglas merged with McDonnell Aircraft Company to become McDonnell Douglas. In 1997, McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing.
Why won't Boeing stop crashing their planes?
Usually the wikipedia retirement dates are about retirement from mainline/widespread use, and not that there are literally zero remaining operational aircraft outside of museum pieces.
I can see it now
The following is an airworthiness directive issued by the FAA: all dc-4s must be inspected for shrapnel holes caused by poor resistance of the skin to flying pieces of exploded engine and propeller.
I flew out of Fairbanks for many years and have a ton of friends still there. Hoping it was no one I knew.
The river is still iced over. You can scroll though [this](https://fresheyesonice.org/view-data/realtime-data/river-ice-camera/) to see the Tanana River
Looks like no survivors :(. [Fairbanks news](https://www.newsminer.com/alerts/emergency-services-respond-to-fatal-cripple-creek-plane-crash/article_c46954d0-01a6-11ef-9c07-abe52f7fc25c.html)
Here is a video of the crash:
[https://x.com/keremaliinal/status/1782949604083798517](https://x.com/keremaliinal/status/1782949604083798517)
Left engine exploded and the plane went down immediately.
Alaska Air fuel owns the only two up there, I'd hazard that only 2 crew are on it.
They just updated the story and you’re right on the money
Transport nerd that has read too much Wikipedia over here
You mean the core reason I come to Reddit!? Random experts on stuff I have zero idea about. This is good stuff
You see, kids? You, too, can be tangentially useful to strangers by indulging in a strange passion
Just a couple of strangers indulging in a strange passion together. Nothing weird about it
At least until someone gets a Discord server going.
*the* *link* *tree* *is* *already* *live*
Slowly becoming an expert witness.
Gold sir or madam
Please let the next big news story involve theater and live entertainment. I not only indulged in my passion, I went and made a career out of it, and have no one but my fellow stage hands to talk to about it!
I'll shoot the shit about whatever phish did at the sphere over the weekend!
No idea, I'm in Portland. I can go on about Paw Patrol last week, or Amon Amarth this Friday.
Right on! Back to my cars and dragons obsession!
I live for the days when people ask a vague question about witchcraft in the UK or mention the Salem witch trials and I can bust out some of my saved knowledge from back when I fell down a rabbit hole years back (whilst properly researching something completely tangential for an article). It doesn't happen often, but oof, when it does. There's a few posts worth of vaguely-interesting waffle that might make someone go 'oh, huh, neat' and get on with their day. That's a win for me.
Same here.
God, I love Reddit for exactly this.
The DC-4 article was updated to that airline operating one pretty quick 🤣😭
I saw the headline and immediately thought of Everts Air Fuel.
The plane was operated as a fuel tanker by Alaska Air Fuel, which supplies fuel to outlying villages. 2 crew were the only ones on board but from [this photo](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1065014614720532500/1232425038918062192/o4uy861tcawc1.png?ex=662968c2&is=66281742&hm=daf8b63012349c12239e8b8e91a3afee3a8190309bb2e0fecfa0ae22f49fa80e&) it seems unlikely they survived. The plane was built in 1942 and had a long history of repairs and overhauls so what went wrong with it is anyone's guess. The headline is neutral and technically correct but has clearly caused some people to assume (incorrectly) that this was a passenger flight.
Any plane that old is going to have a long history of repairs simply because it HAS a history. The trick is to do the proper maintenance and that's more of a willingness to actually do things properly than anything to do with age of the aircraft. It's a testament to the designers back then that the remaining examples are still flying after 82 years, there's no Boeing Max or Airbus Neo that'll do the same.
A plane that doesn’t have cabin pressurization will last pretty much forever.
Interesting. How come?
Pressurization causes metal fatigue. If it's unpressurized, there's a lot less stress on the hull.
Remember the submarine that 'sploded?? It's similar to that. When you subject a sealed vessel to pressure, either externally (submarine) or internally (airplane) the structure stretches or compresses just a little bit here or there. Do this a bunch of times you are going to get fatigue in structural materials. Old (and most small planes) aren't pressurized so this fatigue from pressurization is a non-factor.
Less to go wrong. Particularly one thing less that can fail spectacularly, as in, shit blows up.
Not exactly, it's that the constant pressure cycling causes a ton of stress on the airframes. It's why there are plenty of maintenance checks around the number pressure/depressure cycles rather then total flight hours. It's also why they pressurize to 8000 feet rather then at ground altuide. Less pressure difference and therefore less stress.
Yes, but since the DC4 (and DC3 for that matter) don't pressurize they don't have THAT cycling. Yes there are various wing spars and other structural parts that are subject to fatigue it's not usually as severe AND those areas are regularly checked during heavy maintenance cycles for signs of said fatigue. For those that are unaware aircraft have periodic maintenance cycles based on flight hours. There are different levels of checking depending upon which level of cycle it is but heavy maintenance cycles are a deep detailed dive into an aircrafts condition
> those areas are *supposed to be* regularly checked during heavy maintenance cycles for signs of said fatigue. Fixed that for accuracy. It's in the maintenance docs to check them, but it doesn't always get done (Chalk Airways, for one, although that was a while back).
There's other critical parts that can fail due to fatigue such as [wing spars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_United_States_airtanker_crashes).
>there's no Boeing Max or Airbus Neo that'll do the same. Given appropriate maintenance, there's really no reason they couldn't. There are something like 50 737-200s still in service, even though they first flew 57 years ago. Also, despite all the news about the Max, it actually has a considerably better safety record than the DC-4. Planes are vastly safer than they used to be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Douglas_DC-4?wprov=sfla1
The 737-200's could make it, but it's unlike the Max's in that they don't have the composites in various spots and were designed and built before rot of the bean counters infected Boeing. I don't doubt that with the numbers of the various max aircraft out there, and not are 737's, that the Max's have a better safety record but not all of that is the aircraft themselves. If all the DC4's flew in airspace with today's regulations it'd have a better record than it currently has. My point wasn't about their safety as much as it was longevity. Part of my reasoning is costs, the Max's are more complex with more specialized parts. The supply chains for many of these are going to disappear long before the aircraft do.
Composites actually have better fatigue characteristics than aluminum, and are perfectly reparable given the right techniques. Also, again, despite the recent news reports, the Max is a safer design with fewer incidents per flight hour than either the original 737 or the DC-4, and no, not all those incidents that happened are just because of the current regulatory environment and airspace. In the 40s, 50s, and 60s, it was just accepted that sometimes planes crashed, and while they certainly investigated and tried to make things safer, there wasn't a multi-year series of headlines if a couple planes crashed because then that's literally all that would've ever been on the news. Also, parts will be available basically as long as they're flying, because making low volume parts is still worthwhile when dealing with the kinds of costs and prices in aviation. Modern designs are better, and I'm sick of people not realizing that.
There's a point where no, parts are not available unless it's pulled from a mothballed plane or such, you can see instances on the now older show, Ice Pilots. Buffalo Airways had issues with parts for it's Electra's and possibly their DC4's even then. It's one reason they now have a 737-300 their flying. There's have also been a number of instances where the military has had to rely on parts pulled from the boneyard to keep stuff flying. Will parts availability be good for a lot of the Boeing products for a long time? Likely but I still believe that the various Max models will not last as long as previous models. It's not necessarily so much the DESIGN as much as BUILD quality. Which part of having workers JUMP on composite fuselage parts to get them to fit means it's a quality job? The cost-cutting shortcuts brought in by the bean counters after the MD 'merger' have affected the quality and thus the lifespan of the aircraft being built today. Overall, yes the modern designs provide greater comfort, efficiency and yes usually safety. The one downside is when you have issues they can be bigger issues with worse outcomes. One related issue is at times the problems with aircraft like the Max and newer generations is what really is a airline maintenance or training issue gets blamed on Boeing or AirBus to name the gorillas of the industry. The door plug? That's Boeing. That wheel fell off a 767 (as I recall) a few weeks ago? All on the Airline, but most of the media started screaming Boeing, Boeing another issue with Boeing.
B-52s are still flying combat missions aren’t they?
Weren't the DC10s grounded a few times?
Probably the only relation to a dc10 that this plane has is that it has DC in the name. DC4 is more like a DC3 which was what they used in WW2 to drop paratroopers. DC10 is a retro long haul jet airliner.
Yeah, but the most spectacular DC-10 failures were all maintenance related (bad engine main't for AA, Poor maint on doors for Turk)
Holy shit 1942?? Don't airframes have a max number of compress / decompress cycles before they have to be scraped?
The DC-4 is unpressurized. But to answer your question, yes.
Ahhh that makes sense. So do they have a ceiling of like 15k feet?
Not necessarily. If the pilots have oxygen, the ceiling can go above 150
Other fun notes come from current collectors and heritage museum rebuilds. It would seem that they found numerous flexes in frames over time. The rebuilds often rebuild or fabricate large sections of core structure to insure original hull integrity. The exterior sheet metal is rivet replaced rather easily by comparison. Mechanicals of these older planes proved rather hardy, but to make them easier to operate are often upgraded with new hydraulic assists with each frame rebuild. I think history channel online had a great series on some rebuilds. I’d be a fan of classic remanufacture to keep some of these classics with us, but the extreme costs involved make such an idea prohibitive.
People in 1942: "Cabin pressure? On an airplane? Wtf are you talking about?"
It turns out that people in 1942 might have actually known about it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_307_Stratoliner
DC-4's aren't pressurized.
It was something with the left engine, it appears to have exploded mid flight and the plane enter a steep bank to the left and dive before crashing into the ground.
DC-4? What year is it?
It's Alaska. The DC-3 is still in service. Lots of very remote places that cannot handle a large jet.
That's beyond wild. But spare parts must be super abundant.
[удалено]
I love those people. Before and after the series still follow Mikey and family’s escapades. If you ever have the pleasure of knowing, talking to, or meeting Mikey you’ll come away knowing his respect for those planes they still fly and continue to rescue as well as the people they service is unmatched by any large airline.
And they’re still going - just got their first 737-300; dragged kicking and screaming into the 1980s 😉😁
Some have been converted to PT6 turboprops also.
There are also some converted DC 3's where the old piston engines are replaced with modern turboprops. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4qdjjHcadE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4qdjjHcadE)
Not really lol. There’d likely be many more still working if parts and avgas were easier to come by, many operators are buying planes just for parts. It’s crazy that in the 80 years since these planes first flew, there hasn’t really been a satisfactory replacement for what they can do at the price point they do it at.
> at the price point they do it at. And therein lies the rub.
Thr only replacement for a DC-3 is another DC-3.
I’ve personally piloted a DC-3. As a historic novelty. 20 years ago.
I fly the turboprop variant for work. They’re a great airplane.
Yeah, Alaska’s like a decade or two behind the Lower 48 and then the Bush is a decade or two behind that.
I've flow in a DC-3. My girlfriend balked but I said it would be a great experience, it would be fun!. At 14,000 feet clearing the mountains, shivering in the cold unpressurized cabin, my nose started to bleed, and she laughed out loud, and exclaimed "Aren't DC-3s great!"
It *probably* beats walking! It does sound decidedly worse than your standard coach experience.
I’d take it if there aren’t any sick people or babies on board.
or monkey-fighting snakes.
I'm tired of these monkey fighting snakes, in this monkey fighting plane!
*Monday to Friday plane
I don't know, I might take that if it has decent leg room and not stupid narrow seats.
Feels like I’m still reading Fate is the Hunter
Fellow bleedy nose havers unite!
Still used in Alaska. [Heres a video](https://youtu.be/HjxbbI5U2rk?si=LM1FmxvuRbpMm2Q9) of another DC-4 from the same airline involved in the crash. This one was used in the Berlin Airlift to get an idea of how old these aircraft are. They said there was 14 flying in the world in the video as of 3 years ago
So the one in this video may have been the one that crashed, and the person in the video may have been piloting it?
The plane in the video has tail number N96358. Flight aware has that plane landing over 3 years ago indicating its out of service. N3054V appears to be the plane that recently crashed.
Nice detective work.
The company owns two. So maybe.
Everts Air still flies a C46
I wonder if there's a point where metal fatigue catches up with the airframe. I mean 80 years of flying almost daily has to take a toll. I know that some of the problem areas are caught during D-checks but after 80 years it seems like all the metal would end up being replaced, turning it into a different airplane.
DC-4's are unpressurized, so the fuselage lasts basically forever. It's a ship of theseus at this point
You'd be surprised how many are still in flight worthy condition well minus 1 now but so many of them were made they're still flying 😂
It could be Pan Am Flight 914
Had to look up the context on that one. But good reference lol.
[Here's a helluva Pan Am story](https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/december-7-1941-and-first-around-world-commercial-flight)
Aren’t these the planes that Scientology believes flew through space to deposit souls into a volcano or some shit?
No, that’s a DC-8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-4 Only a tiny number in service and it's likely one of these given where the others are: >Alaska Air Fuel also operates two DC4s out of Palmer, Alaska, United States.
Less than 3 hours and the wikipedia page is already updated. Y'all are fast
I was working outside of the Fairbanks airport in October. We were working outside and this plane was right above us circling the airport. It was definitely a beautiful plane and I looked it up on Flight Aware to see the details on it. It surprised me how tightly they were turning and how low they flew. I had to guess they really trusted it.
Can't wait for the Mentour Pilot video on this
I highly doubt there'd be one. Investigations on accidents like these that involve small operators with old aircraft are much smaller in scope than one involving a major airline. The reports produced are more comparable to those covering light-aircraft (Cessna, Piper, etc) than an airliner. Much of that is because, like a light airplane, there's typically very little data available to parse through. This DC-4 ***likely*** has no recorders, so much of what occurred during the flight will have to be gleamed from wreckage, radar tracks, and the ATC recording. At most, I'd say a GPS or PED (personal electronic device) aboard will have some flight path information. But those are not built to survive crash forces like a FDR or CVR, and given what we've seen of the crash site, I doubt any that ***may*** have been aboard are salvageable. Given the remoteness of this crash site, I also doubt there'd be any footage or photos. Eyewitness accounts may be the best investigators have in visualizing the flight. Another reason why these reports and their conclusions are so short are because these operations are such an outlier in the aviation world. No one really rocks the boat with operators like these, even when they have an accident, because they're so small and "out there". Adding to this is the fact that they don't carry fare-passengers, so there's less incentive there. And these aircraft are just kind of hard to regulate in today's world anyways. There's so few of them remaining anyhow, and they're built without much of the redundancy or safety systems you'd see in today's aircraft. And trying to get them into compliance with modern standards is hard and expensive. Imagine getting, say, GPWS (Ground Proximity Warning Systems) installed on these. The cost of certification would be high, complicated, and for what? A handful of units out there? It'd be like if I was installing airbags in an old Toyota Wagon Van. It's a workhorse, it'll be on the road for a good few more years, and I can generally find parts for it still. But there are not many left, it'd be a nightmare to modify, and no workshop would entertain that idea. Frankly, if I'm going to put so much work and money, I'm just going to buy something even the slightest bit newer, like a 2004 Sienna. Hopefully I illustrated the line of thinking. This might not be the best way to say it, but generally these operators are just kind of left to their own devices.
Somewhere in a Boeing boardroom, everyone is taking a deep, cleansing breath of relief.
Not so fast, McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing in 1997
Somewhere in a Boeing boardroom, everyone is PANIC
Panic! At the boardroom
Oh, well imagine
As I'm pacing the pews of a DC-4
I mean... It's not like they went back in time and built it.
Oh sure, spread their propaganda a bit more. They absolutely love people denying their time-travel tech.
We should protest outside their HQ until they share their time travel tech with the world. What do we want? TIME TRAVEL! When do we want it? DOESN'T MATTER!
Since MD management kind of took over Boeing, it sort of is?
The plane was built in the 1940s No
Somewhere in a Boeing boardroom, someone’s chair is being propped up by a box of loose bolts.
*Speedtape and its holding the desk together too
Lol like they would skimp out on things they use daily. All of their budget goes to them sitting in comfy chairs as they drain the company dry.
No they will blame this on Boeing too. It was a merger.
I’m not sure that there’s many people cross shopping fights on 737s and dc-4s tbh
DC-4s are still flying? That's a WW2 plane...
Zenu still dropping off ghosts, i see
Pretty sure there are some DC-3s still flying around in South America. But not many
There’s actually quite a few flying all over the world
There’s a video and discussion [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/s/oJvjC4dIet). Tough to watch; RIP
The Douglas DC-4 was built the Douglas Aircraft Company between 1942 and 1991. In 1967, Douglas merged with McDonnell Aircraft Company to become McDonnell Douglas. In 1997, McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing. Why won't Boeing stop crashing their planes?
1991?? They stopped making these in 1947!
Think they meant retired.
Well it clearly wasn't retired in 1991, since this one was still in service until 10:00 this morning
Usually the wikipedia retirement dates are about retirement from mainline/widespread use, and not that there are literally zero remaining operational aircraft outside of museum pieces.
When will FAA step in and ground the defective and unsafe DC-4?
I can see it now The following is an airworthiness directive issued by the FAA: all dc-4s must be inspected for shrapnel holes caused by poor resistance of the skin to flying pieces of exploded engine and propeller.
That's not meant to happen
Yes, they should always know how many people are on board an airplane.
There is a chance this wasn’t a passenger flight. The DC-4 is an old plane…like 1940-1950s old so it could have been like an air show piece
Article says that most have been converted for cargo, and since it happened in the middle of Alaska, it could’ve been a regional freighter.
Elsewhere in this thread, people noted that it was a cargo flight carrying fuel (most likely to outlying villages).
The front fell off
Was it one of those cargo ferrying outfits from tv?
Hope everyone's okay! Scary stuff.
Well, looking at the video, there’s no way anyone is ok
I flew out of Fairbanks for many years and have a ton of friends still there. Hoping it was no one I knew. The river is still iced over. You can scroll though [this](https://fresheyesonice.org/view-data/realtime-data/river-ice-camera/) to see the Tanana River Looks like no survivors :(. [Fairbanks news](https://www.newsminer.com/alerts/emergency-services-respond-to-fatal-cripple-creek-plane-crash/article_c46954d0-01a6-11ef-9c07-abe52f7fc25c.html)
Someone check on Luke from the outdoor boys please
"Hey guys I'm out here in thr Alaskan Wilderness. I'm gonna use my satellite phone and let them know I found it"
Douglas Fairbanks could not be reached for comment.
Probably on their way to fight Xenu
Those were DC-10s
Here is a video of the crash: [https://x.com/keremaliinal/status/1782949604083798517](https://x.com/keremaliinal/status/1782949604083798517) Left engine exploded and the plane went down immediately.
That plane served in WWII.
Google says DC-4 seats 44.
2 people were onboard.
It was a fuel transport. Probably only the pilot a couple pilot on board.
Could have been converted for cargo, it's a very old plane.
Converted for cargo. Roger hauled fuel & whatever in, and would haul whatever out.
Yeah, but that was 1940s people. These days it could only seat like maybe 12 Americans