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 44 occupants onboard the aircraft were killed on impact.[1][2]
| 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 |
Aircraft
editThe 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
editThe aircraft, cruising at 21k feet near Ingolstadt, suddenly had an in-flight fire (likely due to an electrical supply failure[1][3]). The flight crew alerted ATC about the fire, the aircraft then started an emergency descent to Munich. The aircraft then suddenly lost control, entered a dive,[2] and impacted the Nuremberg-Munich autobahn near kilometer stone 472.2.[3] A few pieces of aircraft fell away while in the dive, and the rest were scattered when the plane impacted, with a debris field measuring roughly 1900 meters.[3] All 48 people onboard were killed. Despite landing on a busy highway, there were no ground fatalities. One car sustained light damage, and the driver sustained only minor injuries.[1][2][3]
Aftermath
editSome 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]
The AAIB concluded that the cause was possibly a circuit failure, leading to the fire and loss of control.[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
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Accident Vickers 739A Viscount G-ATFN, Friday 9 August 1968". asn.flightsafety.org. Retrieved 2024-09-09.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "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 d e f g http://liverpoolcatholicramblers.com/Archives%20LCRA%201968%20plane%20crash/Bavarian%20Air%20Crash.pdf
- ^ "Home of Eagle - G-ATFN". www.britisheagle.net. Retrieved 2024-09-09.
External links
edit- The accident details at asn.flightsafety.org