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i’m keeping this because i worked my ass off on this


i’m keeping this because i worked my ass off on this

The soft white nightly glow of Benton Harbor on the lake had become mixed with orange flashes. On the ground, firefighters were battling a raging fire that had engulfed a warehouse. The smell of kerosene filled the air, and townspeople reported seeing debris falling from the sky. On the night of December 13, 2017, Benton Harbour, Michigan had become the crash site of Raines Air Flight 397, which would take the lives of 5 people. People around the nation were left wondering, how could a normal routine flight end up with a Boeing 747 disintegrating in mid air?

November 5th, 2003 saw the delivery of Raines Air’s fourth 747-400F, which was registered N841RA. It was one of the 8 ordered in 2000. It was based out of Raines’ Chicago hub and primarily did outsize cargo and air mail runs. It had accumulated over 45,000 flight hours and had been last repainted in 2013.

It was 8:34 PM at O’Hare International Airport. The aircraft was being loaded up with airmail for Fedex and USPS for a flight from Chicago to New York. The captain of the flight, Linda Burnes, had about 40,000 logged flight hours, and the first officer, John Jaker, had about 15,000. It was a calm, yet cold December night, with little to no inhibiting weather on the route.

The flight took off from O’Hare at 9:07 PM and began climbing to altitude. The aircraft headed east towards New York and flew over Lake Michigan. It all went smoothly, with the aircraft barely running into any turbulence. It began to fly over the small coastal town of Benton Harbour, Michigan at over 30,000 feet and the plane was reaching it’s altitude of-

BANG! A booming noise shook the airplane and it immediately rolled to the right. The aircraft suddenly rolled to left and became inverted with a nose down attitude. The aircraft started rapidly diving towards the ground at around 35,000 feet per minute and was gaining speed. At 10,000 ft, as the plane spiraled out of control, both wings snapped off, causing the fuselage to burst into flames and disintegrate. At 9:23 PM, The wreckage of Flight 397 hit the ground at 741 mph. It struck a warehouse between North Shore Dr and Collins Ave, and exploded. Both pilots were killed when the aircraft went down. There were five people in the warehouse at the time, and three were killed while two were badly injured.

Fire Lieutenant James Haley was one of the first firefighters at the scene. The scene looked like hell had ripped open. Fires from the warehouse shot up 100 feet into the air, turning the black sky into a dreadful red. Fumes from burning jet fuel and gasoline entered through his protective mask and made his eyes burn and tear up. A stinging smell of kerosene attacked the nose of anyone who was outside at the time. Small bits of paper and cardboard fluttered down like snow across the whole town. By the time the fire had been put out, two days had passed. The crash site was a charred mess, with almost nothing recognizable left.

Almost instantly after the crash the NTSB opened an investigation and a go-team was assembled. The first things that were noticeable was a trail of debris in the woods west of the main impact point. These were determined to have broken off before the plane hit the ground. The shattered remains of the tail, aft section and aft cargo door were among the debris trail. However, the strangest and most pivotal debris found was that of the aft rear bulkhead. It was fractured in 8 pieces, but the tears in each piece were strange. The deeper parts of the metal had jagged and erratic tears, while the upper parts had clean, crisp tears, as if it was blown clean off. These parts were stored in a hangar at Southwest Michigan Regional Airport for further analysis.

The Cockpit Voice Recorder and Flight Data Recorder were found 3 days after the crash, buried deep in the dirt after a hard impact. They were analyzed and its information was extracted. 16 minutes into the flight, an event happened that depleted rudder control and rendered the plane uncontrollable. The pilots, confused and panicked, attempted to fix the situation. The plane went into a dive and both went out at 20,000 ft. It was theorized the vertical stabilizer was torn off by an event. Explanations were thrown around that the aft bulkhead suffered a failure from cracking and the overpressurization of the tail caused the ejection of the vertical stabilizer. This happened in 1985 when a Japan Airlines 747SR suffered an explosive decompression. The aircraft struggled on before it crashed into a mountain, killing 520 people.

They finally had their main theory, but they needed evidence. For this, they looked at N841RA's maintenance records. The aircraft had had a D-check in July of 2011, which included the inspection and removal of the aft pressure bulkhead. The company which performed the check was Sierra Pacific Logistics, Inc in Tucson, Arizona. The NTSB began looking into the company via inspection by a team at the company’s facility. They noted unusual parts storing procedures and long strenuous work hours for the employees. However, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

The investigation came to a shocking twist when a whistleblower at Sierra Pacific Logistics called the NTSB. He wished to remain anonymous, but did state that he had been working at the company as a mechanic since 2009. He explained that while N841RA was going through it’s D-check in 2011, the aft rear bulkhead was indeed removed. The crews treated the bulkhead poorly, knocking it around recklessly. When the whistleblower discussed his grave concerns about the bulkhead with the head mechanic, he dismissed his concerns. Instead of being replaced, the damaged bulkhead went right back on N841RA. The pieces of the puzzle were coming together quickly, and the mystery would finally be solved soon.

The final report was released by the NTSB on June 16, 2019. It had stated that Sierra Pacific Logistics had mishandled the rear aft bulkhead’s inspection and had caused cracks to form. These cracks worsened as the aircraft went through many pressurization cycles. However, maintenance crews at Raines did not noticed these cracks, they were mostly underneath the surface and hard to see even with equipment. What did not help was that Raines had not yet invested in technology that would find deep cracks in metal parts. The cracks were a web, all intersecting in the center of the bulkhead. On December 13, 2017, the bulkhead finally failed, shattering it into 8 pieces. The shift in pressurization to the tail caused the vertical stabilizer to eject from the empennage. The pieces of the bulkhead broke through the outer skin and hole left by the vertical stabilizer. The plane went into a right hand roll, which was unsuccessfully corrected by rolling it to the left. The overreaction by the crew, as well as the gradually failing hydraulics, caused the plane to invert and spiral in a nosedive. The structural failure of the tail caused the aft section to break apart to the cargo door. The wings failed and the burning fuselage slammed into a warehouse. The accident was caused by poor maintenance and Raines’ inability to identify it. The FAA released a doctrine shortly after that would more heavily scrutinize cargo airlines, as a few months before the report an Atlas Air 767 crashed in Anahuac, Texas.

What followed was a lengthy civil battle between Raines Air and Sierra Pacific Logistics. Raines Air Systems filed a lawsuit that July, on behalf of the victims and citing a breach of contract. Instead of settling the lawsuit, Sierra Pacific Logistics sued them back. In October of that year, the court ruled in favor of Raines and SPL was forced to pay 70 million in damages and compensation. This coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic caused the company to go bankrupt and cease operations 6 months later. Raines did not fare that well either. Raines suffered hits on it’s Q1 2019 and Q4 2018 profits. The negative publicity caused by the crash did not help either. The financial ramifications of the crash and the 2020 pandemic caused a period of financial uncertainty which the airline rebounded from by May 2021.

At the crash site, the warehouse was torn down and the city of Benton Harbour installed a park in honor of the victims. In July of 2020, Raines Air announced that the final 747 to be delivered to the airline in 2024 would be named “Captain Linda Burnes” after the flight’s captain. After a few years, the crash seemed to fade from public view. However, the citizens of Benton Harbour would not. Many even lived a short walk away from where the aircraft went down. It seemed that everyone would not forget the day a 747 went down and the flames from the stricken warehouse were seen for miles, and most importantly, 5 innocent people were killed. Wouldn't you?


This story and livery is inspred by this post from Rigel: http://www.airline-e...dated-template/



    Incredible story good job

    Interesting, and pretty nice livery too, but is flight number 387 or 397

    tl:dr pls

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    tl:dr pls
     unknown.png

    Rear aft bulkhead go boom, plane go down

    Interesting, and pretty nice livery too, but is flight number 387 or 397

    It is 397. Apologies for the mistype in the title.