CAAC flight 301

CAAC flight 301
	An identical Hawker Siddeley HS.121 Trident of the CAAC
Accident summary
Accident type	Agreement from the runway
place	Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong
date	August 31, 1988
Fatalities	7th
Survivors	82
Injured	15th
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Hawker Siddeley HS.121 Trident
operator	CAAC
Mark	B-2218
Departure airport	Guangzhou Baiyun Airport (old) , People's Republic of China;
Destination airport	Kai Tak Airport , Hong Kong;
Passengers	78
crew	11
	Lists of aviation accidents

The CAAC Flight 301 (Flight number: CA301 ) was a scheduled flight of the Chinese airline CAAC from the airport Guangzhou Baiyun (old) to the airport Hong Kong Kai Tak . On August 31, 1988, a Hawker Siddeley HS.121 Trident had an accident on this flight while landing. 7 out of 89 people on board were killed in the accident.

plane

The aircraft involved in the accident was a 15-year-old Hawker Siddeley HS.121 Trident 2E . The aircraft had the factory number 2159. The machine completed its maiden flight on May 19, 1973 with the test registration G-AZFV , before it was delivered to the CAAC on June 17, 1973 and initially approved with the aircraft registration 244 . In 1974 the license plate was changed to B-244 , and finally to B-2218 in July 1985 . The three - engine narrow -body aircraft - the Hawker Siddeley Trident was the world's first three-engine passenger aircraft at the time - was equipped with three Rolls-Royce Spey 512 engines.

the accident

The flight from Guangzhou was initially without incident. On the final approach to Kai Tak Airport, the aircraft's crew was exposed to heavy rain with visibility of only 450 meters. Shortly before touchdown, the right wing of the machine grazed the approach lights of runway 31. The tires of the main landing gear brushed the runway threshold, whereupon the right main landing gear was torn off. The machine then rose into the air, only to hit the runway 600 meters further. The machine skidded to the right of the runway and then slid diagonally across the strip of grass that surrounded the runway. The nose landing gear and the left main landing gear also collapsed. The machine slid on the running parallel to the runway runway and finally into the Kowloon Bay. While much of the aircraft fuselage remained intact, the bow section with the cockpit buckled and plunged into the water of Kowloon Bay.

Victim

Sketch of the distribution of seats in the machine. The point where the hull broke apart is marked in red, and the point from which the bow section was submerged in the water in blue

Seven people were killed in the accident. Of the seven people killed, six were crew members. They were in the bent nose section of the machine and drowned after this part of the aircraft sank. The seventh victim was a Hong Kong passenger who died in hospital from injuries.

Three crew members, all citizens of the People's Republic of China , were injured in the accident, as were seven passengers from Hong Kong, two from Taiwan and one French passenger. One of the injured passengers was a Chinese citizen of the United States.

Cause of accident

The cause of the accident could not be clearly determined. The accident investigators assumed an unstable final approach and shear winds as factors. The machine had also sunk under the glide path. The investigators assumed that this had come about after the pilots could no longer make any visual references due to the impaired visibility due to the heavy rains.

swell

22.3287 114.1944Coordinates: 22 ° 19 ′ 43 " N , 114 ° 11 ′ 40" E