Erik

Reports today indicate that two audible alarms were heard in the cockpit prior to impact. One of which was most notably "sink rate" indicating the rate of decent was high. The second was a most likely the terrain warning "pull up". The annunciations were heard 7 seconds before impact noise could be heard on the cockpit voice recorder and it is unclear if that is from striking the trees or ground impact. It was further noted that no distress call was ever made from the cockpit. Tower crew on duty indicated that they had no indication that the plane was too low on approach and they noted that landing lights could be seen. They were a bright white and suddenly a bright flash of orange followed by a red glow. Possible indication that the aircraft struck not only the trees but a nearby power line. Cpt. Cerea Beal the PIC had more than 23 years with UPS (3200 hours in the type A300) and 6 years in the US Marine Corps as a helo pilot, his FO 37 year old Shanda Flanning.

Some of these images coming out of Egypt are amazingly powerful. These are novice or lay photographers documenting their lives. It would be incredible to see our own version of this from the eyes of our members who live there. They don't need to show the worst of humanity just document the times as they're seen now.

After I wrote that I started looking at the approach plates, etc. You are exactly correct that one eight does have ILS/DME but no precision approach equipment. So without knowing the condition of the AP or AT at the time it can only be concluded they were hand flying with the help of the ILS and PAPI systems until proven otherwise. I'll be curious to hear the final moments of the voice recorder to see if there was ever any indication from either the left or right seat that their flight path was too low as would be indicated and that with their weight they were too far behind the spool to successfully hit the GA button. Without the request being heard in the tower it makes me think they were flying into a black hole and short of the terrain avoidance warning they were caught looking for the PAPI in a condition where it was never visible to them. Speculation all but wise your operation department have restricted access to that approach. More may follow that lead. Stay safe out there.

I don't care how you cut the first image it's impressive. Whether you look at the side slip of two boat widths or the concussive displacement shockwave from the guns, it's impressive firepower.

Look at that fireball, that looks like one of the cruise missiles ignited while being locked into the hull, the chain reaction would be incredible. Anyone know if this was the vessel that test fired the BrahMos super sonic cruise missle back in March? Incredible loss but this could have been an all hands loss if it had happened underway. S! to those that lost their lives.

That's got to be one of the best bar stories ever, from both sides of the story.

I think I got all the requests that were made while I was busy with rebuilding the library of files. If I missed you please PM and let me know, otherwise things should be all set for everyone. Thanks.

Everything should be back on-line now. I haven't found any files that I've lost, however the images or screenshots aren't back in place yet and I'm not sure when I'll get to those. It took three plus weeks to get the files back and each file had multiple images so it may be faster to ask that the authors upload new screenies of their files and while you're there check that your files are actually downloading. Either way I'll get to this and thanks for all the support and help getting things back on-line. Erik

Put in a quick fix to remove the small pop-up PM window until a fix can be implemented by the developer. I have submitted a support ticket and I will advise when the original functionality has been returned. Thanks for reporting this. Erik

Did I have a request from you? Let me know. Erik

That is correct. File notifications are sent every time a file is updated and with the rebuild of the file content a lot of them have been updated, but not changed.

I moved it but I can't promise it will stay the final word will have to come from MigBuster, as he may have had it there for a reason.

In the menu next to the Downloads is a Member Map. It's really easy to use and it would be nice to see where everyone is from. So far there are only 4 from the US and EU is kicking our butt, so let's get with it and have some fun. Yes it's us against them and the pond in the middle is the dividing line.

Some of us are still around and I would love nothing more than to get WC back up and running again as it used to be. It's still functional and all the equipment is online it just needs controllers to run sessions. I ran many session back in the day and I miss the time with Harold at LAX. Whatever you guys want to bring to table just let me know and we'll see what we can do. I look forward to working some traffic again.

You guy's totally missed the bumper stickers on the new Japanese Cruiser. "We brake for Gawdzirraw" and "Nuclear reactors made in Fukushima" and slyly the Autobots emblem. Way to go Japan!

The files are all back online and functioning normally now. There should be no further interruptions with downloads. Some of the file authors have already started to fill in there screenshots which I greatly appreciate. I will get started on recovering the images some time next week after a short break from the file system. Moderators and Authors can edit, change, move files as they wish from this point forward. Thank you for your help and patience.

From the looks of your marker I think you're lost and you're trying to get directions home. You can't fool us.

Thank you for your service to this country. Please abuse the shit out of us, it's the least we can do. Have fun and remember if you hear EJECT EJECT EJECT it's probably too late.

I'm working on it. I don't have an ETA sorry, I've had to hand touch all 11,000+ files over the past couple of weeks and I'm finally down to a few hundred. I'll get there if it kills me, which is a bet you all may lose.

https://combatace.com/index.php?app=core&module=usercp&tab=core&area=displayname If that doesn't do it send me a PM with what you want it to be. You will only be changing your display name which is what we see on the boards, your log in name will always remain the same. Thanks.

Yes. To everyone else who PM'd me or sent me an email I think there are about six or seven of you, I haven't forgotten you. I've been busy with the downloads and I will get to you just as soon as possible. Thank you.

Updated.

Hello -- I can't duplicate this report. Can you send me a PM and show me what you mean and how the truncation breaks the actual link. I've tested this with short and long links and haven't found what you're on to. Thank you.

This is done automatically by the system. However each person has the option to choose when and how they want to receive notifications. Those options are found in your settings here: http://combatace.com/index.php?app=core&module=usercp&tab=core&area=notifications This has to be done by the recipient because they are the ones being notified. Thanks.

So as you all have probably figured out by now we had a serious issue develop. Three weeks ago while awaiting a fix for the file server I awoke one morning to find a response to my support ticket. In brief, they had fixed the problem by reformatting the drives on the file server. The assumption was this was a clean machine with no data on it other than the operating system, etc. In fact the drives contained the almost 1 terabyte of data known as our downloads. I'm still working with the data center to come to a resolve regarding this, and in the meantime I've been repairing our files. Three weeks of living and breathing downloads, three weeks of living hell. I've received many emails and correspondences some of which I haven't even replied to yet. Thank you all for contacting me and yes I know the downloads are offline. Let's get into the meat of it. This is where we stand today. FILE STRUCTURE - 100% FILES RECOVERED - 100% ( I still have a few hundred files to fix but they all are in tact) SCREENSHOTS RECOVERED 15% (I haven't worked on this yet or found a simple solution, TBD) FILESYSTEM - BACK ON-LINE If you are a file Author please feel free to update your file with screenshots or just check your files. If you have a problem or question please let me know and I will be glad to help. This will help me out tremendously. FILE SUBSCRIPTIONS -- If you have a membership I believe I credited everyone for a month and I know we're really close on that. If you feel I owe you time please let me know and I'll make the adjustment. If you started a subscription while the file system was offline I will be restarting all those after writing this. So everyone should be square, but if I overlooked something please speak up. The last thing I ever want to do is short someone or not be responsive to your concerns. I'm not sure when I will get around to recovering the screenshots, the files alone took three weeks and there are multiple screenshots for each file so I can't even imagine what it's going to take to do those. As mentioned if the author's get around to it first it would help with my workload. Dave, maybe you can reach out to some of the guys and see what they can do or spearhead an operation. I would have never thought this situation could ever happen and I sincerely apologize. I planned for every contingency except one having my disks formatted and as this is the first recovery I've ever had to make from our backups I'll be implementing some changes to those also to aid in recovery should this happen again. That said I've spent our entire working budget on restoring the files and upgrading equipment so I need to heal financially from this as well. Spending the time on the downloads that I have has kept me from other work so all in all things are just grim. It's a huge mess and we're on the road to recovery. Here's to tomorrow and a good night's rest. All my best; Erik