New Update A History of Sud-Aviation SE-210 Caravelle Aircraft Accidents

 In the 15-year duration among 1959 and 1974, there were 19 fatality producing mishaps, which collectively brought on 1,018 losses of lifestyles.

The first of those came about on January 19, 1960 when an SAS Caravelle I, registered OY-KRB and named "Orrn Viking," tried to land in Ankara, Turkey, at the ultimate leg of its multi-quarter flight that had taken it from Stockholm to Dusseldorf through Vienna, Ankara itself, and Damascus with 42 passengers on board. Its very last vacation spot changed into Cairo.

Descending via 6,500 ft, the twin-jet knifed via heavy rain and became socked by means of sizeable winds. The captain, indicating not anything amiss, persisted his method, reporting that the airport changed into now in sight. Yet at 20:48 neighborhood time, or 5 mins earlier than it have to have touched down, it collided with a hill, exploding and spraying wreckage over a 300-square-yard location, which quick erupted in flame. Although handiest three survivors were rescued and pulled from the shattered fuselage, they sooner or later succumbed to their accidents.

A jointly conduced Turkish-Scandinavian inquiry discovered that the plane had experienced fast altitude loss, descending under its Minimum descent altitude, and resultantly collided with obstructions, or, formally worded, "The accident befell because of an unintentional descent underneath the authorized minimum flight altitude in the course of final technique to Esenboga Airport. The reason for this descent, (but), couldn't be ascertained due to loss of conclusive proof."

The 2nd deadly SE.210 accident happened four months later, on May thirteen, 1960, underneath notably exceptional conditions. In this, a Caravelle IA operated by way of Air Algerie and registered F-OBNI, executed an approach to Paris-Orly after its flight from Algiers, now descending through 6,000 ft.

Cleared to enter the sample for a visual approach to Runway 20, it become poised to initiate its closing flip. But preserving a three hundred-degree heading, a 1,000-fpm descent fee, and a 260-knot air pace that would put together it for trailing aspect flap extension sequencing, its captain tried to preserve a Convair in sight off his left side. It became additionally in tower communique and was cleared to land on Runway 20-Left. Yet it become not the only plane that needed to be cited.

The first officer, who changed into preparing to display his heading records, also stuck a glimpse via his forward, right window of an open-cockpit Stampe SV-4C biplane registered F-BDEV that became barely above the Caravelle's altitude.

Despite evasive action, which entailed a push of the control column, the inevitable midair collision passed off 13 kilometers from the Orly tower. The biplane plowed into the dual-jet's ahead, top fuselage, ripping it open and depositing its engine into it, as though it had been a sardine can, and immediately killed one passenger and injured 25 others. One of its wheels lodged itself into the Caravelle's right engine consumption, without delay hindering its 5,a hundred-rpm rotation.

A miracle, which can perhaps be attributed to the plane's layout integrity and its pilots' skill, however befell when it performed an Emergency landing after its flight engineer restarted the turbofans, the port spooling up to eight,000 rpm and the starboard to 5,000, at 04:50 local time.

The Stampe, faring far worse, spiraled to the ground and immediately killed its pilot.

The accident became blamed on archaic regulations that stated that both pilots have been responsible for fending off collisions, however that the biplane's right-aspect vicinity gave it the right-of-manner. However, jet aircraft speeds and approaches precluded the sensible possibility of adhering to them by way of visible means on my own.

Following the sample seemingly set up by way of the primary two fatal Caravelle accidents, a third, going on on September 12, 1961, also worried a landing approach. In this, an Air France SE.210-III registered F-BJBT and working as AF 2005 from Paris-Orly to Rabat and Casablanca in Morocco, routinely accompanied its flight plan across France, traversing Spain east of Madrid and crossing the Strait of Gibraltar.

Passing the KJ non-directional beacon, which changed into 800 meters west of the Rabat-Sale Airport, it carried out a 360-diploma flip so as lose sufficient altitude from which to make its technique, passing the town at a 1,650-foot altitude. At 21:08 neighborhood time, its group requested clearance to make a 180-diploma turn in order that it could intercept the Runway 04 localizer, intending to apply the KI non-directional beacon as a backup navigation useful resource. Although the tower cautioned it that it turned into not consistent with the meant runway, no confirmation of this truth changed into lower back.

Two minutes later, it become cautioned of reduced visibility due to airport-place fog, but once more no confirmation become obtained.

Yet, persevering with its 4-mile final approach, the Caravelle struck the floor with its nostril wheel one minute earlier than this closing transmission, plunging into a rock and subsequently a hill, bursting into flame. All six crew members and 71 passengers on board have been immediately killed.

The subsequent twist of fate research focused on an instrument studying mistakes, explaining that the "Kollsman window altimeter, with which this Caravelle changed into geared up, may be delicate, as validated by means of a few systematic tests completed by means of surprisingly trained crews of diverse European airlines; and by means of the possibility that the pilot made that mistakes of one 000 toes at the start of the descent, maintaining it,(and) then gave his complete interest to analyzing the pointer, which appeared to him to be of top significance, as a way to bring in the plane on the minimum authorized altitude."

Although no fatality-ensuing injuries befell in 1962,  sizable incidents took place alternatively.

In the first, a Caravelle operated by way of Sabena enroute from Teheran to Brussels with an intermediate stope in Istanbul, skilled a gyroscopic failure simply as its passengers finished their breakfast and sturdy winds brought about it to stray off direction. Unable to exactly decide its role, it changed into given a subtle trace when 3 Soviet MiG opponents unexpectedly seemed as it commenced to penetrate Armenian air space.

Requested that the dual-jet observe them, it affirmatively spoke back with a sway of its wings. The fighter trio, positioning itself each in advance of and at the back of the jetliner, became its brief navigation gadget. After escort and landing at an air base near Grazny in northern Caucasus, the 18 passengers have been required to submit their names and nationalities, even as the crew became pressured to submit to scrutinized wondering.

Failed gyroscopes, it become to be confirmed, resulted in a much more circuitous journey than anticipated. The passengers, at the side of the flight attendants, were first flown to Moscow on a turboprop-powered Ilyushin Il-18, which turned into regularly considered as the Soviet equivalent of the Lockheed Electra, and remained the night time earlier than subsequently being transported to Brussels, their original destination, even as the pilots stayed with the Caravelle.

During the second one incident, which occurred  months later, on March 17, an undercarriage malfunction of an SAS plane in Stockholm caused the grounding of its Caravelle fleet, despite the fact that no injuries were sustained.

Deviating from the sort's landing segment accident pattern, a Swissair SE.210-III registered HB-ICV and running as Flight SR 306, departed Zurich's Kloten International Airport for Rome with an intermediate forestall in Geneva on September 4, 1963. Mechanical failure, on this instance, played the determining role.

The group, conscious that the runway visible ranges for Runways 16 and 34 were, respectively, 60 and 180 meters, nonetheless initiated its taxi, electing to tour midway down the latter strip to visually affirm visibility after which go back to the brink. Although it robotically circled at 07:13 and started a high quality price-of-climb, it trailed smoke on its left facet and then a protracted flame from its port wing root, still dealing with to reach an eight,800-foot altitude.

An emergency transmission, only decipherable as "No extra, no more," preceded the twin-jet's altitude loss and earthward dive, at which factor it bored a 50-foot hole within the ground on the outskirts of Durrennasch a few 22 miles from the airport, reduced to flaming shreds. All six group individuals and seventy four passengers perished, marking Swissair's worst crash as much as that point.

It was sooner or later decided that one of the Caravelle's tires had dislodged itself from its mounting rapidly after its Remaining takeoff even as the wheel had nevertheless been spinning. A wheel rim, pieces of a tire, a connection cable, and hydraulic fluid had all been found at the runway, and several pieces of metallic had also been determined six miles from the crash website online. Although it could not be decided why the wheel had disintegrated, it become in the end believed that an explosion within the location of the undercarriage had taken place shortly after takeoff, resulting on top of things loss and structures malfunction during the plane's 20-mile dash, at the stop of which the captain relayed his loss as "no greater."

Yet another Caravelle twist of fate entailing an method for the duration of diminishing climate situations befell on April 17, 1964. A Middle East Airlines SE.210-III registered OD-AEM and operating from Beirut to Dhahran as Flight ME 444 with seven team contributors and 42 passengers, departed at 17:09 and ascended to its cruise altitude of 30,000 toes, estimating its vacation spot at 19:28. During its descent, it acquired the cutting-edge nearby weather, which covered a ten-knot, north-northeast wind gusting to 16 and a zero.5-nautical mile visibility, the latter the result of a sandstorm.

There changed into not anything to signify strange procedures while the pilot stated that he might reach the Dhahran beacon at 19:28. A in addition transmission confirmed his descent through five,000 feet, at which time he turned into cleared for an ADF (computerized path finder) technique.

The controller asked the team to record at 4,000 feet, a minute after which it stated that it became leaving that altitude, and, at 19:30, descending via 2,500 ft and turning inbound for touchdown. Cleared for its very last approach, the aircraft changed into asked to document reaching its minimal and that the runway became in sight.

Yet, at 19:32, a quick, loud transmission noise turned into recorded through the Tower. No in addition message turned into acquired from the flight. It was finally determined that the aircraft struck the ocean on the final touch of the procedural flip 4 nautical miles off shore and ten miles south of the Dhahran Airport.

Although an air-and-sea rescue search regarding constant- and rotary-wing plane, become at once dispatched, sandstorms, developing close to-zero visibility, precluded its continuation, however it was all over again performed the subsequent morning, at which era one in every of two Air Force helicopters and  industrial airliners noticed the wreckage ten miles from the airport. Although the twin-jet's fuselage turned into submerged in the Persian Gulf, one among its wings jutted out of the water. All forty nine on board had perished.

It ought to simplest be speculated that the crew had misinterpret their altimeters and could not decide their genuine peak above the floor due to the faded, sandstorm-triggered visibility, leaving them without outside reference. Criticism of the Caravelle;s cockpit came into play because it lacked any standardized tool layout and varied according to version, leaving crew misinterpretation as a feasible potentiality.

Yet the aircraft's accident sample handiest continued. Executing an device landing device technique to Runway 31 at Hong Kong's Kai Tak International Airport on June 30, 1967 after a multi-sector flight that had taken it from Tokyo, Osaka, and Taipei, a Thai Airways International Caravelle, registered HS-TGI, fought its manner thru mist, fog, and heavy rain. But the captain, in search of visible floor contact, was unaware that the plane was 415 ft under the glideslope and the primary officer, who constituted the pilot-flying, made a heading change that ended in a high descent charge that undershot the runway by way of three hundred toes and caused a plunge into Kowloon Bay.

Hydro-foiling thru the water, it shed its tail, leaving both sections to retain travelling till they got here to relaxation. The passengers escaped through the gaping hole at the quit of the larger of the jet's  severed sections, wading via the water earlier than hiking onto lifestyles rafts.

While the crash changed into deemed "survivable," 24 of the eighty on board succumbed due to the jammed forward access and galley servicing doors, leaving them with out an escape get right of entry to.

Several reasons attributed to the in all likelihood reason, which include the fact that "the pilots did now not adhere to the Thai Airways process for a 'captain monitored' approach in terrible visibility; (the fact that) the captain did no longer display the approach competently; (and the truth that) "the co-pilot mishandled the plane after descending underneath the minimal altitude. Downdrafts can also (also have) contributed to the height loss which resulted from this mishandling."

Five months later, on November four, 1967, a repetition of this coincidence seamed to occur. An Iberia Airlines Caravelle 10R, powered by using Pratt and Whitney JT8D-7 turbofans and registered EC-BDD, departed Malaga as Flight IB 062 with seven team participants and 30 passengers. Although it encountered intermittent drizzle and mist in the course of its subsequent descent to London-Heathrow a few three hours later, visibility became more than ok. Its approach, as had passed off some place else in its twist of fate records, turned into recurring, all over again intensifying the thriller behind its closing mishap.

Cleared to descent to 21,000 toes, the dual-jet became given a visitors-circumventing routing to Ibsley. Now re-cleared to 11,000 toes, it was asked to show proper to a 060-degree heading, so that it can continue to Dunsfold. Flying abeam of Fawley, it said descending through 14,500 feet. Four minutes later, it become cleared "direct to EPSOM," which its team stated.

Continuing to descend and reporting no anomaly to the contrary, it impacted timber at the southern slope of Blackdown Hill in West Sussex, 48 kilometers from its destination, careening for several hundred yards, plowing across a meadow in which 65 grazing sheep had been caught in its trajectory, and disintegrating as it plunged via a hedge. All on board, useless to mention, perished.

Although the twist of fate could be labeled as managed flight into terrain and a misreading of the aircraft's 3-factor altimeter turned into each suspected and examined, no definitive motive might be decided, mainly as it had inexplicably endured to descend via its ultimate assigned altitude and impacted with the floor.

The 9/11, 1968 accident of an Air France Caravelle III, registered F-BOHB and powered by using Rolls Royce RA.29 527B Avon engines, broke from the sample, although it changed into nevertheless executing an approach and nosing through negative visibility. Operating as Flight AF 1611 from Ajaccio, Corsica, it carried 89 passengers, most of whom had been French nationals returning from holiday, and 6 crew contributors, on its domestic sector to Nice.

Unlike the alternative mishap, this one was forewarned. The captain said a fireplace within the rear of the cabin and asked emergency landing clearance in Nice, which changed into granted, along side instructions to descend to two,000 toes.

While it neared the coast, it penetrated strong winds, but they proved no obstacle to the situation. Instead, the Caravelle endured its emergency method, in the course of which the captain asked that hearth trucks and ambulances be to be had as quickly as it touched down. But it never could.

At 10:31, or handiest 22 minutes after it had departed its foundation, the captain radioed, "On va crasher si ca continue" or "We will crash if this keeps."

Now engulfed in flames, it plunged into the Mediterranean Sea off of the French Riviera three minutes later, taking all 95 lives with it.

The likely motive of the accident became an aft-cabin fire in the starboard bathroom and galley location, even though its origin couldn't be determined.

Almost two years later, on August 2, 1969, a non-deadly Caravelle incident resulted from an excessive method pace.

An Alitalia SE.210-VIN, powered with the aid of thrust reverser-devoid Mk 531B Avon engines and registered I-DABF, proceeded from Rome as Flight AZ 342 to Marseille. Having calculated its VREF speed as 120 knots, it touched down on Runway 32 at a speed 60 knots better than this, and although it tried to arrest its momentum with launch of its tail-placed drag chute, it burst, leaving the dual-jet to plunge into the water of Etang de Berre and come to relaxation one hundred fifty meters from the shore.

Although all eight group participants and 37 passengers survived the aquatic plunge, excessive speed became nevertheless attributed as its motive. Lack of thrust reversers and their failed, drag chute alternative sealed its destiny.

A similar, but fatal crash accompanied on April 1, 1970. I this, a Royal Air Maroc Caravelle, piloted by using an Air France captain and first officer, carried 82 passengers, maximum of whom have been Easter excursion-returning Frenchmen and Moroccans, on its Agadir-Casablanca-Paris flight.

Initiating its touchdown at its intermediate stop, it descended too swiftly, uninteresting toward the small village of Al Gara. Although the captain took evasive action through banking faraway from it, the maneuver proved unsuccessful. Instead, the plane snapped 3 power wires and careened into a avenue only 2 hundred yards from the community, exploding. Because the tail snapped off, 21 of the 82 aboard managed to break out via the resultant hole.

The kind's repetitive pattern played out yet again on January 7, 1972, generating Iberia's worst coincidence in terms of fatalities at the time in what turned into categorized as managed fight into terrain.

Piloted by Captain Jose Luis Ballester, the Caravelle VIR, registered EC-ATV and powered by Mk 533R Avon turbofans, operated a Spanish domestic area from Madrid to Ibiza with an intermediate forestall in Valencia as Flight IB 602. All, except 18 passengers, disembarked there, even as any other 80 joined them.

Once once more airborne and final the 90-mile gap to the Mediterranean island, it began its technique to Runway 07 via thick fog at 12:00 midday. But, blind to obstructing terrain and failing to preserve its minimum descent altitude (MDA), it impacted with the 415-meter-high Sierra de Atalayasa Mountains at a stage that became 30 meters below its summit, instantly claiming the lives of all ninety eight passengers and 6 crew members aboard.

Another Caravelle twist of fate, which additionally befell for the duration of the technique segment and changed into categorised as the worst within the kind's records, took place  months later, on March 14, 1972.

A Sterling Airways SE.210-10B, powered by way of JT8D-7 engines and registered OY-STL, undertook a multiple-area charter carrier between Colombo, Sri Lanka, and Copenhagen, Denmark, with intermediate stops in Bombay, Dubai, and Ankara with six team member and 106 passengers as Flight NB 296.

Refueled at the first of its intermediate stops, it departed for its 2d, Dubai, adhering to its R19 airway flight plan, whose five factors had been as it should be suggested at flight degree three-one-0.

Arrival climate, received by using Captain Ole Jongensen, entailed wind from 040 stages at 18 knots, ten kilometers of visibility, and a five-eights cloud overlaying at 2,000 feet.

Slicing its manner via extensive precipitation, the Super Caravelle observed the 084-degre radial to its Dubai VOR, at which point approach control informed the aircraft that it have to expect its descent clearance in 13 mins.

But the crew's request for fast descent clearance seven mins later indicated its lack of locational awareness, because its said function, of 96 nautical miles from Dubai, became sixty seven miles off. They had been, in fact, nevertheless 162 miles out.

During its descent to the now-cleared, 4,000-foot altitude, it became recommended that each runways 12 and 30 can be decided on, to which the captain answered, "We will see if we will make this a straight-in on 30."

Now descending through 13,500 toes in darkness and maximum in all likelihood mistaking the lighting of Fujarah, Ghurayfah, and Kaiba as those of Dubai, it experienced radio static because it overflew mountainous terrain, unable to song into its NDB and VOR frequencies. At a 1,600-foot altitude, it impacted with the peaks.

Both incorrect cognizance of the plane's position and visible verification of lights that did not belong to Dubai proved the culprits of the sort's worst coincidence, which claimed all 112 lives on board.

A runway-undershoot incident resulted din the loss of all 23 lives a yr later, on June 1, 1973, when a Cruzeiro do Sul Caravelle VIR, linking Belem and Sao Luis, prematurely touched down, skidded out of manipulate, and crashed, bursting into flames.

Two months later, an tried method in below-minimal weather situations claimed the lives of all six team members and 79 passengers aboard an Aviaco Caravelle 10R registered EC-BIC and working as Flight 118 from Madrid to La Coruna, a seashore town in northwestern Spain.

During its approach to its destination, it was informed that climate at the airport became under minimums and that it changed into unlikely to improve fast. Electing to shoot a simulated technique to gauge actual conditions, it did so, even as the tower became on the visible method slope indicator (VASI). Because its descent to it at some stage in such conditions ended in no visual picture of the runway, it elected to preserve at 6,000 ft, although fog persevered to roll in from the sea.

After development a few 50 minutes later, the dual-jet once again initiated its method and reported leaving five,000 toes, however once again aborted the strive because of visibility. During the final one, it mentioned passing over the LRA VOR, however ground contact become not with the runway. Instead, it become with eucalyptus trees, first with its right wing, after which with the homes beyond it, ensuing inside the conflagration that took the lives.