Air France flight 009

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Air France flight 009
Lockheed L749A F-BAZE Algerie ORY 5/31/57 edited-3.jpg

An Air France Lockheed Constellation, similar to the accident machine
Accident summary
Accident type Controlled flight into terrain
place Sao Miguel , Azores
date October 28, 1949
Fatalities 48
Survivors 0
Injured 0
Aircraft
Aircraft type Lockheed 749A Constellation
operator Air France
Surname F-BAZN
Departure airport Paris-Orly
Stopover Santa Maria
Destination airport New York City
Passengers 37
crew 11
Lists of aviation accidents

On October 28, 1949 crashed a Lockheed Constellation 749A that the Air France flight 009 from Paris to New York pointed out, on the island of São Miguel ( Azores ) at Monte Redondo. All 48 occupants, 37 passengers and eleven crew members died when the Air France plane crashed on the mountain in a random flight. Because several celebrities were among the victims, the accident attracted media attention worldwide.

Disaster

The Lockheed Constellation was around two years old at the time of the accident. The captain of the machine was the experienced flight captain De la Noue. The departure took place at 8:05 p.m. from Paris-Orly airport . A stop at the airport of Santa Maria was planned to refuel ; then the flight should continue to New York. At 1:41 a.m., the pilots reported that the aircraft was 150 nautical miles away from the airport and that arrival was scheduled for 2:45 a.m., which was later corrected to 2:55 a.m. At 02:51 a.m., four minutes before the planned landing, De la Noue asked for landing instructions, pointing out that he would be within sight of the airfield. These were then given to him. At this point the machine was approximately 3,000 feet. The captain's radio message “Having accomplished first part of flight normally, ready to land in five minutes at Santa Maria. Weather clear. ”Was the last contact with the plane.

A few minutes after contact with the crew was broken, a truck driver saw a flash of light on a slope of Monte Redondo on São Miguel Island , about ninety miles north of the planned stopover. A search from the air was initiated, in which eight hours after the crash, the completely destroyed and burned wreck could be located. All inmates were dead at this point and burned beyond recognition.

It can be assumed that the machine was on the wrong course and that the pilots mistook the islands of São Miguel and Santa Maria in visual flight . The position information given by the crew to the airport in Santa Maria was therefore incorrect. When the pilots followed the landing instructions received by radio, the Lockheed Constellation collided at an altitude of 900 meters - not far from Pico da Vara, the island's highest mountain - with Monte Redondo on São Miguel. How the mix-up came about is unclear, but São Miguel, as the main island of the Azores, already had an airfield at this point in time, which De la Noue believed to be possibly that of the airport in Santa Maria. His statement about seeing the runway suggests that it was indeed a fatal error.

Passengers and crew

Bernard Boutet de Monvel (1926)

All 48 people on board the plane were killed in the crash, 37 of them were passengers. Most of them were business people and public figures. One of the victims was the professional boxer and former middleweight world champion, Marcel Cerdan , who was on his way to Edith Piaf , with whom he had a relationship. The film Edith and Marcel ( Édith et Marcel , 1983) is dedicated to this relationship and also deals with the plane crash.

Also Ginette Neveu , one of the most important violinists of her time, and her brother, the pianist Jean Neveu, died. When her body was found, she was holding her Stradivarius violin in her arms. The instrument was broken but not burned. Another passenger on board the Lockheed Constellation was the 67-year-old painter and illustrator Bernard Boutet de Monvel , son of the illustrator Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel .

Katie and Kay Kamen were among the eleven victims who were US citizens . The millionaire and businessman had joked in a last letter from Paris to his office in New York about his enormous fear of flying. Kamen was a close friend of Walt Disney's , one of the most powerful men in his company and is considered the inventor of modern merchandising .

One flight attendant was Suzanne Roig. She was the godchild of the writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry , who had had an airplane accident five years earlier.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Report from AP. In: The New York Times , October 29, 1949
  2. ↑ THE AZORES: These Are the Paths. In: TIME , November 7, 1949, page 2
  3. ^ Crash report from the Flight Safety Organization
  4. ↑ Marcel Cerdan: SA TRAGIQUE DISPARITION (1949) . Archived from the original on October 22, 2013. Retrieved April 22, 2019.
  5. ^ Edith and Marcel in the Internet Movie Database
  6. ↑ a b c d THE AZORES: These Are the Paths. In: TIME , November 7, 1949, page 1
  7. ↑ Donald Brook : Violinists of To-Day. Read Books, 2007, ISBN 1-4067-7480-4 , quoted: “When her body was found it was observed that her Stradivarius — her most precious possession — was clutched tightly in her arms. The violin, though broken, had not been burned. "
  8. ↑ The Master of Marketing , section The Kamen Era Ends in Tragedy

Web links

Coordinates: 37 ° 48 ′ 32.8 "  N , 25 ° 12 ′ 27.4"  W.