Video shows plane's moment of impact at SFO

It looked like the wingtip dug in, causing the "flip up", then aircraft slowed, the jet settled back down.

If the jet had done a 360, its unlikely the main fuselage would stay together, it would have broken into several large pieces.

I didn't see a 360, it just tipped to the slide after the nose going up.

It did a 180, spinning around with the nose digging into the ground.

Yes, that's a literal translation. We say many similar things in English to express shock: "good God", "my God", "God almighty", etc.

Whats the difference does it make "how often"? When it happens its usually fatal and this looks like a miracle only 2 dead (RIP).

How often per year you have terrorist attack (1 this year?) and yet you have billions of dollars spent and US Constitution shredded with the possibility of some sweating pot-belly stranger grouping your three-years daughter between her crotch, checking if you hadn't packed some explosives there (just like every american parent would sacrifice their child for their terrorist threat [just being extremely sarcastic here obviously]).

Its actually weird that each airport does not have close-circuit cameras recording each runway. I dont see a problem just make it what 24hours closed recording and its enough in case there is situation like this one.

Side note: from the initial pictures how the roof looked like, my assumption was that there were two bombs in overhead compartments. I would never guess that a belly diving would cause such a sever damage to the roof of the airplane where it looks like it was extensively burned.

Fatal crashes like this are rare enough to make the headlines, but near-accidents, non-fatal accidents and other minor events could be better documented and help improve the overall safety and efficiency.

Given the current low price of high-quality video equipment, and the cost of both safety equipment and investigation, even in minor cases, this sounds actually like a good idea. Footage could be deleted quickly if nothing eventful happens, reducing the costs even further.

It would be much more helpful and less privacy-invasive than the rest of the airport camera circuit, and probably cheaper.

Cars in Russia routinely have dash-mounted cams to record driving; helps for insurance claims. It's one reason why there were so many videos of the meteorite that hit Chelyabinsk, taken while driving.

The cost of minimal useful equipment to accomplish that task at every international airport in the US (~150) would be less than the cost of a single 777 empty ($300MM). The value of that footage? I don't know, but it sounds like a bargain to me.

A few dozen go pro's are not going to cost much and we have surveillance pretty much everywhere else, so why not here. Every post office in the USA has about 25 high res cameras.

Not sure how you'd warn a pilot about a crash simply using a camera? Either way, there is already a (practically P2P) collision avoidance system that's pretty reliable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCAS

The cost is trivial in proportion to the benefit (and pretty trivial in absolute terms; for a few thousand you could have a high resolution image shooting at a high frame rate). Most car journeys don't involve an accident either, it's just that there's so many of them.

The FDR / CVR will record much data, including controls and communications. They won't record:

Other aircraft or objects in the vicinity.

Parts of the aircraft which have separated. Look to the telemetry data / communications in the case of the Columbia shuttle disaster as ground control tried to work out what was happening with the off-range readings for tire pressure sensors -- as the wing of the shuttle was being carved out from the inside by 6000°F reentry plasma.

Fine-grained movement of the aircraft, its components, the interior, fire and/or smoke, debris, etc, at 16-1000 frames per second 1080p resolution.

Runway incursions, airspace incursions, and other near-miss phenomena.

Small aircraft without FDR/CVR equipment.

The equipment cost is minimal. Equipping the plane itself with video capabilities would be an additional feature, but simply having ground, runway, approach, and departure path video would be useful. As others have noted, not only for the (very rare) emergencies, but for the far more common "incidents".

On the negative side: inclement weather, including rain, snow, and fog (the latter being common at SFO) would limit utility somewhat.

http://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/news/runway_incurs... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_safety http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/05/06/runway_incursi...

From that last (and presumably applying to Canada, not the US):

A Star analysis of Transport Canada data counted 5,677 incursions by aircraft, vehicles and pedestrians since 1999, averaging almost 400 a year.

I'm not going to question you, because the plane did indeed have enough energy to the "flip". I'm just going to suggest things about the speed. The approach speed a 777 at 250km/h, is correct, that's 134 kts which is maybe a tad bit slower then what it should be. However, the NTSB confirmed today that the aircraft was significantly slower than that – which why the plane ended up coming up short and stalling. Furthermore there is at least a couple seconds of the plane skidding on the ground which would have slowed it yet even more before it did the "flip".

The Sioux City DC-10 did not cartwheel. I believe a wing detached which is why people thought it did.

Agreed. That might put an end to the endless complaints on reddit and other sites about vertical videos.

The problem is, when you hold your phone horizontally it's painfully obvious to other people you're taking a video. Holding it vertically allows for being more discreet. You might just be texting or something.

Smartphone manufacturers could also solve this problem by somehow auto-rotating the camera internally.

I always assumed that broadcasters added those blurry sidebars in on purpose from data in the middle section so that they weren't just displaying blank black bars on two-thirds of the screen.

That's the scenario I imagined as well. Which gave me pause, because I thought most onlookers in this situation, including myself, would value publishing the video immediately instead of collecting a payoff.

The entire transaction strikes me as a bit tasteless (perhaps even Ballardian), but raises another interesting question: once you have such a video, how do you put a value on it, given that there may be any number of other amateur videos taken, with a good chance that they're of better quality than your own?

OH MY GOD, WHY? OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD.

People react strangely and unpredictably in circumstances with which they are not familiar. I think her reaction was probably more along the lines of "This is crazy and you just happen to be filming it."

It seems like it's a good idea if you realize the person next to you is doing something very important to make double sure they're aware this is the case.