Excerpt below from story originally published at USA Today.
Jaafar El-Awady, a professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, told USA TODAY he was stunned by videos showing how the plane tumbled from the sky.
“It’s not like it was flying down. It looks more like a rock was falling out of the sky,” El-Awady said, indicating the plane stalled mid-air. Confirming what happened and why, however, could take months or even years, depending on the root cause.
To maintain flight, an airplane must stay above a certain speed. If it drops below that threshold, the aircraft starts to fall, El-Awady said. Pilots are trained to maneuver out of a stall, but if a plane has suffered critical damage, such as wing or tail problems, coupled with a failing engine, the mission could be doomed.
Jaafar El-Awady
Since the aircraft that crashed Friday had two engines, if just one failed and there was no other damage, El-Awady said the pilot should have still been able to fly and land.
As an aerospace engineer who champions the safety of air travel, such an incident hits home.
“We have a lot more to do to ensure that these incidents don’t happen again,” he said.