British Eagle Flight 802
| Accident | |
|---|---|
| Date | August 9, 1968 |
| Summary | Loss of control due to total electrical failure |
| Site | Near Langenbruck, Germany |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Vickers Viscount |
| Aircraft name | "City of Truro" |
| Operator | British Eagle International Airlines |
| Registration | G-AFTN |
| Flight origin | London (LHR) |
| Destination | Innsbruck (INN) |
| Occupants | 48 |
| Passengers | 44 |
| Crew | 4 |
| Fatalities | 48 |
| Survivors | 0 |
British Eagle Flight 802 was a scheduled flight from London (Heathrow) to Innsbruck.[1][2] On August 9, 1968, the Vickers Viscount operating the flight had a total electrical failure. The crew began an emergency descent, during which the Viscount lost control, crashing into a highway.[1][2] All 48 occupants onboard the aircraft were killed on impact.[1][2]
Aircraft
The aircraft operating the flight was a Vickers Viscount, Makers Serial Number (MSN) 394. It was built in 1958 for Misrair, the Egyptian airline, and sold to British Eagle International Airlines on September 3, 1965.[3]Upon purchase it was registered as G-AFTN and named “City of Truro".[1][2][4] The aircraft had logged 18656 hours of flight with 10781 flights.[1][2]
Accident
Flight 802 reached its cruising altitude of 21,000 feet at 11:12 GMT. The aircraft entered Munich airspace at 12:52. Ten minutes later it passed waypoint 'Mike' and was cleared to descend to 12,000 feet. This clearance was not acknowledged by the crew, nor were any of the subsequent attempts to establish contact. Witnesses reported hearing a loud bang followed by the aircraft diving in a high speed turn. The bangs were the result of both wingtips and the left elevator breaking off due to aerodynamic forces. At 13:29 it impacted the embankment carrying the four-lane Munich-Nürnberg autobahn. The debris injured a bystander and damaged a car. All 48 on board were killed.[5]
Aftermath
Some of the aircraft’s derbis landed in surrounding fields while the main body of the aircraft was found on the Nuremberg highway. The tail was found 3km away from the wreckage of the fuselage. The rescue operations were delayed since it was difficult to reach the location of the crash due to a traffic jam by people driving for Christmas.[1][2]
Three months later, on November 6, 1968, British Eagle International Airlines stopped flying completely due to financial difficulties.[3]
As a result of the crash, the British Aircraft Corporation (into which Vickers had been subsumed) made a number of modifications to aircraft systems and crew training drills to prevent this type of accident from happening in the future.[3]
References
- ^ a b c d e f "Accident Vickers 739A Viscount G-ATFN, Friday 9 August 1968". asn.flightsafety.org. Retrieved 2024-09-09.
- ^ a b c d e f "Crash of a Vickers 739A Viscount in Langenbruck: 48 killed | Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives". www.baaa-acro.com. Retrieved 2024-09-09.
- ^ a b c http://liverpoolcatholicramblers.com/Archives%20LCRA%201968%20plane%20crash/Bavarian%20Air%20Crash.pdf
- ^ "Home of Eagle - G-ATFN". www.britisheagle.net. Retrieved 2024-09-09.
- ^ Job, Macarthur (13 September 2001). Air disaster: Volume 4: the Propeller Era. Monday Books. pp. 323–337. ISBN 1-875671-11-0.
External links
- The accident details at asn.flightsafety.org