Quoted:
I've heard a couple different things...1st theory was a a blown tire/locked up nose gear.....but since there's 3 blown tires they're looking into a possible hard landing. A hard landing happened somewhere else about 8 months ago n this resembles that one.....and tis accident did happen in bad weather I believe...and of course there's an ongoing investigation......
Talking about the other E-3 crash at Nellis?
We landed really freakin hard on that jet. Maybe it was a hard landing on this one, maybe not. These planes are old and a lot of times don't get the attention they need. I would not be surprised at all if it was just a structural failure on the gear. I've been on a plane where the Eng told me he saw a 6" crack in a landing gear support strut written up, but the forms said it was determined there was "no significant stress on the part to warrant replacing"
I wondered after Nellis if there wasn't something wrong that affected the rest of the fleet....I don't know whether to call this coincidence or not honestly, but I'm leaning towards it in this case.