An An-12 plane operated by the airline Nimbus took off for Krasnoyarsk carrying 9.3 tons of gold and other precious metals, according to a statement from the state Investigative Committee quoted by Tass. Damage to a door handle caused it to fly open and spill some of the metal.Other photos and info at the Circa article seem to show that the entire 9.3 tons didn't fall out of the aircraft, so we have no way of knowing if everything that was dumped has been recovered. It's odd that they specify they recovered 3.4 tons of gold and don't mention recovering anything else, though. If you go to the original articles, there are pictures of bars of a white metal on the ground, and the article does mention platinum being among the "droppings", so gold clearly isn't all that fell out of the plane.
Authorities recovered 172 gold bars weighing 3.4 tons, Tass quoted Interior Ministry officials as saying.
-21C is about -6 F, which I suspect is pretty balmy in Siberia, depending on lots of things. It's probably not the worst weather the search and recovery teams have worked in.
An important story? No. But after a week like this, we could use some humor in our worlds; at least, I can!
OK, if you want a real laugh, then consider that nuclear war might break out between India and Pakistan. Someone has their finger on the button!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5504845/Diplomat-doorbell-pranks-reflect-rise-Indian-Pakistan-tensions.html
It's no laughing matter. It could spill onto our streets and uncontrolled and rampant doorbell ringing at all hours of the day and night will stalk the land, bringing a reign of terror to all. Just YOU wait until you get a 3AM ring ... I'm taking the battery out of MY doorbell just to be safe. >};o)
Escalating it to tying thread to the door knocker and tying it to a lamp post across the road and waiting for a car to come down the road and knock the knocker will be the escalation that I'm dreading ...
Phil B
On the raining gold story:
ReplyDeleteI was pretty amused by the shocking concept of spilled valuables so I dug a little further. Needless to say- much parroting of news reports- and the facts were ALLLL over the place. The more dramatic the better, naturally.
There was no clear sense even of WHERE the plane actually relanded! Pick one: same airport, or to three nearby region strips. Geez~ muddled!
I Agree SIG, I couldn't find a straight up fact on how much was where. I say it like that as the values/quantities before and after were mish mash reporting, all on speculation anyway... Bleh.
AS to the cause: it's simple. Load shifted, and gold being 19 times heavier than water (think 1 bucket of gold weighs same as 19 bucket s of water, and you have a lot of weight in a small area. the slide towards rear hatch overloaded the latch/hinge something~ and it tore off- dumping the pile the pileup against it. There was some initial reports of the hatch being torn loose by a wind gust. CYA? At the least, the pull up on takeoff- or side shove, maybe more extreme by a wind gust, caused the breakaway cargo or added to the poor loading.
CLEARLY- they were lucky the thing didn't crash, like the military cargo 747 in Afghanistan several year sago. Tragic stuff!
I suppose it is likely- some random pieces landed away from the tarmac. I feel bad for the owner company!
Last details: Despite the sensationalism (Diamonds! Platinum! Ferraris! (ok I added the last expensive thing ;)-
I couldn't get a clear sense of the actual production- but a better (I guess) source indicated the mine is reported as gold and silver. The rough bars are likely a mixture headed for refining, hence the mottled color silver. I am just not convinced yet of the platinum. Minor detail :)-
~JO:)