Air France Flight 178
| Air France Flight 178 | |
|---|---|
 An Air France aircraft of the same construction |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | controlled flight into terrain |
| place | Mont Cimet |
| date | September 1, 1953 |
| Fatalities | 42 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Injured | 0 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Lockheed L-749 Constellation |
| operator | Air France |
| Mark | F-BAZZ |
| Departure airport | Paris-Orly Airport |
| Destination airport | Nice airport |
| Passengers | 33 |
| crew | 9 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
Air France flight 178 (AF178) was a scheduled flight of Air France from Paris to Saigon , on which on September 1, 1953 a Lockheed L-749 Constellation with the registration F-BAZZ in the Southern Alps on the first leg between Paris-Orly and Nice crashed, killing all 42 inmates.
Aircraft and crew
The aircraft was a two-year-old Lockheed L-749 Constellation for Air France , which was completely destroyed in the impact. The reinforced version of the Lockheed L-649 was equipped with four 18-cylinder propeller engines of the Wright R-3350 -749C18BD type , each with a maximum of 2500 hp at 2750 rpm. In commercial operation, it was run by four pilots and, depending on the number of passengers, two to four flight attendants.
Flight history
The aircraft was on the route from Paris to Saigon when the accident happened. Planned stopovers were Nice (NCE), Beirut (BEY), Baghdad (BGW), Karachi (KHI) and Calcutta (CCU). After taking off from Paris-Orly at 10 p.m. local time, the machine should have reached Nice just under two hours later, at 11:55 p.m. At 11:25 pm, due to local storm areas, the pilots asked the air traffic controllers for permission to change the altitude from 13,600 feet (approx. 4,145 meters) to 11,500 feet (approx. 3,500 meters). At 11:30 p.m. local time, villagers from Fours-St. Laurent hit the rock face of Mont Cimet (3,020 m), 80 kilometers northwest of Nice. In the course of the descent, the pilots deviated from their originally planned route - via Montélimar, which is about 150 kilometers west of the rock massif, the machine should have turned southeast in order to approach Nice.
Inmates
Three of the passengers had Beirut as their destination, the remaining 30 were on their way to Saigon. Among the victims were the 72-year-old violinist Jacques Thibaud , who was on his way to Tokyo , his daughter-in-law Suzanne and his musical companion, the pianist René Herbin; Thibaud's Stradivari violin from 1720 was destroyed in the accident. A rescue team that started 90 minutes after the impact from Fours did not reach the crash site until about four and a half hours later, at 5:25 a.m. It consisted of a doctor and a nurse from Barcelonnette and two rescue teams from the military unit of the French alpine fighters . The latter reported by radio at 6:45 a.m. that no survivors had been found at the site of the accident.
literature
- Thibaud Killed in Air Crash. The Times (London), September 3, 1953, issue 52717, page 6.
- Thibaud Killed With 41 Others In Plane Crash. Toledo Blade , Sep 2, 1953, p. 1 ( online )
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Air France F-BAZZ ( English ) aviation-safety.net. April 24, 2015. Accessed March 24, 2015.
- ↑ Lockheed 749A ( English ) American Museum of Aviation. Retrieved March 24, 2015.
- ↑ The Age September 3, 1953 ( English ) Google News. Retrieved March 24, 2015.
Coordinates: 44 ° 17 ′ 25 ″ N , 6 ° 41 ′ 59 ″ E