Delta Air Lines flight 191

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Delta Air Lines flight 191
DeltaL-1011.jpg

An identical L-1011 from Delta Air Lines
Accident summary
Accident type Stall in gust force and wind shear
place Dallas / Fort Worth Airport , Texas , USA
date 2nd August 1985
Fatalities 134
Survivors 29
Injured 27
Fatalities on the ground 1
Injured on the ground 1
Aircraft
Aircraft type Lockheed L-1011
operator Delta Air Lines
Mark N726DA
Passengers 152
crew 11
Lists of aviation accidents

The Delta Air Lines Flight 191 was a scheduled flight of the American Delta Air Lines , on the late afternoon of August 2, 1985 during the approach to the airport Dallas a Lockheed L-1011-1 TriStar had an accident. It had previously started in Fort Lauderdale , Florida and was to fly on to Los Angeles after a stopover in Dallas . A total of 135 people were killed in the accident, including 8 of the 11 crew members, 126 of the 152 flight passengers and one person on the ground. This plane crash is one of the few crashes in commercial aviation that has been proven to have been caused directly by a severe gust of wind and wind shear .

Aircraft

The aircraft involved in the accident was a Lockheed L-1011-385-1 TriStar with aircraft registration number N726DA . The aircraft was handed over to Delta in 1979 and was 6 years old at the time of the crash.

crew

The flight was operated by Captain Edward "Ted" Connors, First Officer Rudolph "Rudy" Price and Second Officer Nick Nassick. The three men were stationed in Atlanta. To the eight-person, in Miami / Ft. Cabin crew stationed in Lauderdale included Fran Alford, Jenny Amatulli, Freida Artz, Vickie Chavis, Diane Johnson, Alyson Lee, Joan Modzelewski, and Wendy Robinson.

crash

NTSB Seat Map: Shows the location of passengers according to injuries and fatalities

During the cruise along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas , flight captain Connors noticed a series of thunderstorms building up and changed the originally planned flight route inland to avoid the thunderstorm cells.

The weather in Dallas was meanwhile similarly midsummer unstable and thunderstorm cells developed in the vicinity of the airport. The cockpit crew noticed this, but decided to continue the approach , with the aircraft being hit by a gust of wind .

On the final approach to runway 17L (now referred to as 17C) at an altitude of 800 feet (240 meters) above the ground, the indicated airspeed rose to a critical range within a few seconds due to a wind shear at 6:05 p.m. and 5 seconds local time. It reached a value of 173 knots IAS (320 km / h) instead of the target speed of 150 knots IAS (278 km / h) for the approach. In this phase of the increase in speed, there was an updraft component of approx. 3 m / s, which at the end of the phase lasting several seconds suddenly changed into a downwind of approx. 6 m / s. Then suddenly at 6:05 p.m. and 19 seconds the displayed speed IAS, caused by strong tail winds, dropped to 119 knots (220 km / h), and the downdraft component rose to first 6, then to almost 12 m / s while the aircraft was in very heavy rain flew in. In the constantly changing wind conditions, First Officer Price tried to maintain the glide path and the speed, which in the initial phase at too high a speed led to a strong throttling of the engines almost to idle. A lateral gust of wind rolled the aircraft 20 ° out of its normal flight position, the subsequent corrective maneuver with full counter- aileron ultimately led to an increase in the angle of attack at low speed, resulting in a stall and uncontrolled sagging in a zone of very turbulent up and down wind fields with several strong changes in pitch of the aircraft.

This sinking continued despite the meanwhile increased engine power and the go-around maneuver called by the master . At 6:05 p.m. and 44 seconds, the GPWS warning horn sounded for the first time and the “Pull Up” warning was issued. The peak rate of descent was between 3,000 and 5,000 feet / minute, but despite maximum engine power and a largely restored normal flight attitude at 6:05 p.m. and 52 seconds, the first unintentional grounding outside the airport area occurred at a speed of 170 knots IAS. The sound recording of the Cockpit Voice Recorder ended at 6:05 p.m. and 5:58 p.m.

About 6300 feet (1920 meters) north of the runway threshold 17L, the main landing gear had ground contact for the first time, the aircraft, still structurally intact, rolled with the main landing gear at high speed over an open field and took off again for a short distance. While driving over Texas State Highway 114, the nose landing gear landed permanently and the No. 1 engine on the left wing hit a passing car, killing the driver. After several highway lights were hit, the airframe began to break and the left wing root was damaged, damaging one of the tanks and igniting the escaping kerosene . The plane finally slid with its left wing against two water tanks on the airport grounds, burst and went up in a ball of fire.

Most of the survivors of Flight 191 were in the rear of the fuselage, which had already broken off from the rest of the wreckage during the collisions. Among the fatalities were the IBM computer engineer Philip Don Estridge and the sister of the jazz pianist Herbie Hancock .

Similar aviation accidents

Web links

Commons : Delta Air Lines Flight 191  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Accident report L-1011 N726DA , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on September 6, 2016.
  2. ↑ Time Magazine: Like a Wall of Napalm (English) accessed October 16, 2011
  3. ↑ Cockpit Voice Recorder ( memento of October 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (English) accessed on October 16, 2011
  4. ↑ DFW marks 25 years since Delta 191 crash. August 2, 2010, archived from the original on August 18, 2010 ; accessed on October 16, 2011 .
  5. ↑ 25 year later: the lessons learned from a tragic event (English) accessed on October 16, 2011
  6. ↑ Jean Hancock, Lyricist Killed In Jet Crash

Coordinates: 32 ° 55 ′ 6 ″  N , 97 ° 1 ′ 25 ″  W.