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747 Crashes on Departure from Bagram, Afghanistan

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Key Takeaways:

  • A National Airlines Boeing 747 cargo plane crashed on departure from Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, killing all seven occupants aboard.
  • Dashcam video captured the plane entering a nose-high stall, subsequently plummeting to the ground and erupting in a large fireball.
  • Investigators are exploring the possibility of a shifted cargo load as the cause, while discrediting Taliban claims of responsibility and ruling out adverse weather conditions.
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A National Airlines Boeing 747-428 cargo plane carrying military vehicles crashed on departure from Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan on Monday, killing all seven occupants aboard the airplane.

The crash was captured on at least two dash cams of vehicles driving on a highway near the air base. The video shows the airplane on its initial climb from Bagram, with a nose-high attitude that only grew higher until the airplane began a wings-level, nose-high stall. The wings rocked briefly, the right wing dropped dramatically, and then the airplane plummeted almost directly down in a nose-high attitude until it impacted the ground with tremendous force, immediately erupting in a huge fireball, killing all on onboard instantly. There is no word on ground casualties, though the area where the 747 crashed appeared in the video to be largely void of structures. The airplane narrowly missed crashing on the highway, where many vehicles were being driven at the time of the crash.

Isabel Goyer

A commercial pilot, Isabel Goyer has been flying for more than 40 years, with hundreds of different aircraft in her logbook and thousands of hours. An award-winning aviation writer, photographer and editor, Ms. Goyer led teams at Sport Pilot, Air Progress and Flying before coming to Plane & Pilot in 2015.

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