Continental Airlines Flight 1713
| Continental Airlines Flight 1713 | |
|---|---|
 A Douglas DC-9-14, similar to the aircraft involved in the accident |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Stopped flow at take-off due to icing and excessive rotation |
| place |
Stapleton International Airport , Denver , Colorado , United States
|
| date | November 15, 1987 |
| Fatalities | 28 |
| Survivors | 54 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type |
Douglas DC- 9-14
|
| operator |
Continental Airlines
|
| Mark |
N626TX
|
| Departure airport |
Stapleton International Airport , Denver , Colorado , United States
|
| Destination airport |
Boise Airport , Boise , Idaho , United States
|
| Passengers | 77 |
| crew | 5 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
On November 15, 1987, on the Continental Airlines flight 1713 (flight number: CO1713 ), a Douglas DC- 9-14, which was to be used for a flight from Denver to Boise , crashed at the start at Stapleton International Airport . In the accident, which occurred during a snow storm, 25 passengers and three crew members died.
plane
The aircraft involved in the accident was a Douglas DC- 9-14 with registration number N626TX . The twin - engined, narrow -body aircraft was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney JT8D -7B engines. The machine was delivered to Air Canada in 1966 , in November 1968 it was taken over by Texas International Airlines and was transferred to them after the merger with Continental Airlines in 1982. At the time of the accident, the DC-9 had completed 52,400 flight hours.
Weather conditions
On the day of the accident, it was snowing lightly at Stapleton Airport, with the highest snowfall rate measured between 1:10 p.m. and 2:20 p.m. Flight 1713 was originally scheduled to take off at 12:25 p.m., but many flights were delayed due to the weather.
the accident
At 13:03, the DC-9 taxied to the de-icing position, which the air traffic controllers did not take note of because the pilots had not asked for permission to taxi beforehand. The de-icing of the machine was completed at 1:46 pm. At 13:51, the crew contacted the apron control and asked for permission to taxi "from the de-icing position". Believing that the aircraft on flight 1713 was still at the gate , the air traffic controller understood the radio message to request de-icing. The air traffic controller responsible for take-off clearances passed responsibility for radio communications to the controller responsible for ground supervision. This gave the pilots the clearance to taxi to the de-icing position. The crew of the machine understood the new taxi clearance to mean that they should queue up at the end of runway 35L and wait for clearance to take off, which they did. At 2:05 p.m. the crew from start position 1 lined up at the northern end of the runway and prepared the aircraft for take-off. Since he did not know where Flight 1713 was, the air traffic controller gave several other machines the clearance to take off, while Flight 1713 stood for minutes at the end of the runway in snowfall. The crew finally drew the attention of air traffic control to the fact that they were standing at the runway and waiting for permission to take off.
At 2:14 p.m., the pilots of flight 1713 received permission to take off. The machine accelerated. Shortly after the sitting at the wheel pilot she pulled, it came to a stall . The machine fell to the ground from a small height and slid across the airport grounds, tearing off the left wing and igniting the kerosene explosively. Next, the left side of the aircraft and the cockpit hit the ground, the fuselage broke apart, the aircraft overturned and landed on the top of the fuselage. As the plane skidded, it leaned to the left, severely deforming the fuselage on that side and crushing many passengers.
Victim
25 passengers and 3 crew members died in the accident. The captain, the first officer, a flight attendant and eleven passengers died of severe multiple trauma . Five passengers suffered fatal head injuries and nine died from asphyxia . There were 52 survivors among the passengers; two flight attendants of the crew survived the accident. Of the 54 survivors, 52 were injured, 25 lightly and 27 seriously.
Accident investigation
The NTSB took over after the accident, the investigation into the cause of the crash.
In July 1988, Continental Airlines published a report that referred to wake vortices , poor winter maintenance in the runway area and errors on the part of air traffic control as causes of crashes. The NTSB was quick to refute the wake vortex theory.
During the investigation it turned out that the captain, Frank B. Zvonek Jr., had more than 166 hours of flight experience with this type of aircraft, whereas the first officer Lee Edward Bruecher had only 36 hours. It also turned out that Bruecher was fired from another airline after failing the flight proficiency test three times. These circumstances were concealed on his job reference, instead his work performance was rated positively there. The investigators assumed that the former employer Bruecher issued a positive evaluation, as he had feared that he could sue him otherwise. It could be determined that First Officer Bruecher had been controlling the machine at the time of the accident.
The investigators also found that 27 minutes had passed since the last de-icing, 7 minutes more than the maximum permitted. The NTSB concluded from testimony of survivors from the aircraft that the wings were covered with accumulations of ice during take-off. Investigators also came to the conclusion that in the time leading up to take-off, an amount of wet snow had fallen on the wings that would have been enough to dilute the de-icing fluid on the wings after melting, so that ice could form again. The aircraft manufacturer stated that even a small amount of ice on the wings could affect a DC-9's take-off properties.
The NTSB investigators came to the conclusion that the first officer's poor flying performance had contributed significantly to the loss of control, as the latter caused the machine to rotate too strongly during take-off . The angular speed with which he pulled the DC-9 up to the angle of attack for take-off was 6 degrees per second, twice as high as would have been recommended in view of the atmospheric conditions, so that the take-off resulted in a stall .
Flight 1713 was Bruecher's first flight after a 24-day break. The NTSB investigators concluded that Bruechers' longer break had caused the flight skills he had acquired in his most recent training to be forgotten.
In its final report of September 27, 1988, the NTSB complained about the failure of the second de-icing of the machine after the 20-minute period had expired, the poor flying performance of the first officer when the machine was started, the misleading communication between the pilots and air traffic control, which led to delays, coupled with the presence of two pilots in the cockpit, both of whom were relatively inexperienced with this type of aircraft.
consequences
As a result of the events, Continental Airlines changed its de-icing practices and developed a computer-aided program to prevent two pilots with less than 100 hours of flight experience with the same aircraft type from being assigned to fly the same aircraft.
Nine months after the accident on Flight 1713, a plane crashed on Delta Air Lines Flight 1141 in Dallas. In the final report of the NTSB on the incident of Flight 1713, which was being prepared at the time, the investigators noted that "private conversations on irrelevant topics lasting almost 3 minutes" had taken place in the cockpit. When the NTSB later investigated the accident on Flight 1141, the investigators found that the crew of this flight had also had irrelevant private conversations and, among other things, referred specifically to the cockpit voice recorder of Flight 1713 in their conversations . In the case of flight 1141, the discussions led to the fact that the crew was distracted from their actual task, processing the checklist for the flight, and forgot to deploy the buoyancy aids.
Media reception
The accident was recreated in Mayday - Alarm im Cockpit , episode 159 under the title Crash in Winter ( Dead Of Winter ) in episode 10 of season 18 .
Similar incidents
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Accident Report DC-9-14, N626TX , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on March 8, 2019
- ↑ N626TX Continental Air Lines McDonnell Douglas DC-9-10. Retrieved October 25, 2019 .
- ^ Thomas J. Knudson: Plane Crashes in Snow at Denver; 26 of the 82 Aboard Are Killed . In: New York Times , November 16, 1987. Retrieved March 8, 2019.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Continental Airlines, Inc., Flight 1713, McDonnell Douglas DC-9-14, N626TX, Stapleton International Airport, Denver, Colorado, November 15, 1987 NTSB (English), published September 27, 1988, accessed March 8, 2019
- ↑ a b Associated Press: US Panel Lays Denver Air Crash To Failure to De-ice Second Time . In: New York Times , September 28, 1988. Retrieved March 8, 2019
- ↑ Recording of the cockpit voice recorder from Delta Air Lines flight 1141