ČSA Flight 511 (March 28, 1961)

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ČSA flight 511
CSA Ilyushin Il-18 Robbins-1.jpg

A ČSA Il-18 similar to the one in the accident
Accident summary
Accident type Structural failure
place about one kilometers north of Upper Rüsselbach ( 49.61799 °  N , 11.28205 °  O )
date March 28, 1961
Fatalities 52
Survivors 0
Aircraft
Aircraft type Ilyushin Il-18 W.
operator Československé Aeroline Line (ČSA)
Mark OK-OAD
Departure airport Prague Airport , Czechoslovakia
1. Stopover Zurich Airport , Switzerland
2. Stopover Rabat Airport , Morocco
3. Stopover Dakar Airport , Senegal
4. Stopover Conakry Airport , Guinea
Destination airport Bamako Airport , Mali
Passengers 44
crew 8th
Lists of aviation accidents

ČSA flight 511 ( OK511 for short ) was a scheduled flight of the Czechoslovak airline ČSA from Prague to Bamako with several stopovers, which ended on March 28, 1961 near Nuremberg with the crash of the Il-18 .

Airplane and pilots

The Ilyushin Il-18W with the registration OK-OAD was handed over to the Československé Aerolinie , ČSA for short , on May 31, 1960 and was eight months old at the time of the accident. The captain of flight OK511 had a total of 8,500 hours and the co-pilot 11,000 hours of flight experience. The two pilots were not very familiar with the IL-18; the copilot had 180 hours and the master 150 hours of flight experience on this type.

course

Flight OK511 took off from Prague Airport at 19:41 and reached its cruising altitude of 6,100 meters at 19:53. At around 8:00 p.m., the pilots reported that they had passed the Bayreuth navigation point at an altitude of 6,100 meters and that they would fly over Nuremberg at around 8:10 p.m. At about 8:09 p.m. the ČSA radio station in Prague received an incomprehensible murmur from flight OK511. The ČSA radio station suspected an emergency. The air traffic controller was asked to contact OK511, but this failed. At 8:20 p.m., air traffic control in Nuremberg was informed of a plane crash near Graefenberg . A nearby military helicopter was then asked to search for the crash site. The helicopter found the burning wreckage of the IL-18 a few minutes later at Upper Rüsselbach near Nuremberg ( 49.61799 °  N , 11.28205 °  O ). None of the 52 inmates, most of them diplomats from Czechoslovakia, survived.

Today a memorial plaque on a tree with the inscription "On March 28, 1961, 52 people died in an airplane accident" commemorates the event.

Accident investigation

On March 29, the crash investigations began in Nuremberg by the Federal Republic of Germany , together with Czechoslovakia , the country of the airline, and the Soviet Union , the manufacturer of the Il-18. Investigators had to rely on the radio traffic and radar recordings, as well as the eyewitness reports and the examination of the debris, as flight recorders were not used until 1967. After evaluating Czech radar data, OK511 had sunk 1,500 meters within a minute, then turned south and disappeared from the radar.

Eyewitnesses

Several witnesses heard the loud howling of the engines, which corresponded to a steep dive. They also heard the engines suddenly stopping and noises that sounded like gunshots or explosions. Other witnesses saw the plane spiral out of the sky. It is said to have burned on the wings or engines.

Investigation of the rubble

The wreckage of the Il-18, which broke apart in the air, was spread over a distance of five kilometers. At the beginning of the debris field, the fairing of two engines was found, followed by the rudder and horizontal stabilizer. A little further away were parts of the right wing, followed by the entire left wing. The rest of the fuselage fell to the ground near Oberrüsselbach. The four engines had previously been torn from the wings, with the propeller of engine no. 4 cutting off the outer end of the right wing. In addition, it was found that the left wing had broken away from the effects of forces from below to above and the vertical stabilizer from left to right. All parts were probably torn off the aircraft due to overload.

Cause of accident

In the final investigation report it was stated that the cause of the crash of OK511 could not be determined. The countries involved in the investigation had considered different causes of the accident, but could not prove any of them due to a lack of evidence. A technical defect or a pilot error could not be ruled out.

Version of the Federal Republic of Germany

The German investigators suspected the failure of the artificial horizon and / or the autopilot , which caused the pilots to lose control, so that the aircraft went into a dive, in which the airframe was overloaded and broke apart. Another assumption was that the aircraft was overloaded during an emergency descent . There was no evidence of an emergency, such as a fire on board. The pilots would probably have informed the air traffic controller if they had initiated an emergency descent.

Version of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union

The Czechoslovak and Soviet investigators, however, suspected that there was an explosion on the left stern of the Il-18, the pressure wave of which tore off the vertical stabilizer and the left horizontal stabilizer. The explosion is said to have been caused by a missile that was fired by either the German Armed Forces or the US Navy. Two and a half years after the crash, the German investigation results were recognized for lack of evidence for other crash theories.

Version by Miroslav Voráček

A former member of the investigation, engineer Miroslav Voráček, suspected that a failure of the artificial horizon could not lead to the crash, since the Il-18 had three pieces. He suspected that an incorrect trim led to the crash of the Il-18. Since, according to the investigation report, the trims for elevator, rudder and ailerons were set to neutral , he suspected that the autopilot switched itself off during the flight and that the incorrect trim caused the aircraft to dive into a dive, which ultimately led to it breaking up in the air. After several test flights in which the Il-18 showed similar behavior, this would be the most likely cause of the crash, according to Voráček.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ильюшин Ил-18В Бортовой №: OK-OAD
  2. ↑ a b Letadlo ČSA se zřítilo u Norimberka. Podle Rusů bylo sestřeleno. April 3, 2002, accessed September 1, 2015 (Czech).

Web links

Coordinates: 49 ° 37 ′ 1.2 ″  N , 11 ° 15 ′ 36 ″  E