East African Airways

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East African Airways
EAA logo with the flying lion
DC-3 of the EAA
IATA code : EC
ICAO code : EC
Call sign : EASTAF
Founding: 1945
Operation stopped: 1977
Seat: Nairobi , Kenya
KenyaKenya 
Fleet size: 16
Aims: international
East African Airways ceased operations in 1977. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation.

East African Airways Corp. ( EAA , EAAC ) was an airline founded in 1945 as an originally British company. In January 1946, the company began flight operations in the former British colonial areas of Kenya , Uganda , Tanganyika and Zanzibar . After their independence, the three East African states Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, which at that time formed the first East African Community (EAC), continued to operate East African Airways as a multinational company . When the EAC was dissolved in 1977, this also marked the end of East African Airways. The three states each founded their own national airline: Kenya Airways , Uganda Airlines and Air Tanzania .

fleet

EAA had Douglas DC-3 aircraft and various variants such as the C-47 Skytrain and C-4s of the Canadair North Star type . Later they were supplemented by De Havilland DH.106 Comet and Vickers VC10 , among others , in order to be able to compete with the BOAC . In Europe, Athens , Copenhagen , Frankfurt , London , Rome and Zurich were served . The following were represented in the EAA fleet:

Incidents

From 1955 to the cessation of operations in 1977 East African Airways suffered six total write-offs of aircraft. 64 people were killed in 3 of them. Extracts:

  • On May 18, 1955, a Douglas DC-3 of East African Airways (VP-KHH) had an accident on the southeast slope of Mawenzi in the Kilimanjaro massif. The plane took off at 10:39 am local time from Dar es Salaam Airport to Nairobi. At 11:56 a.m., the last position report was received from an altitude of around 3200 meters ( FL 105). The wreck of the machine was discovered four days later. All 16 passengers and the 4 crew members were killed.
  • On April 27, 1964, a Douglas DC-3 of East African Airways (VP-KJP) came off the runway while landing in strong crosswinds at Kilwa Airport in Tanzania and hit soft ground, causing the left propeller to come loose and into The cockpit hit. The captain was killed on the spot, while the other 24 inmates survived.
This Vickers VC10 (5X-UVA) of East African Airlines had an accident in 1972 while taking off from Addis Ababa.
  • On April 18, 1972, an East African Airways (5X-UVA) Vickers VC10 crashed while taking off from Addis Ababa Airport . The plane had taken off from Nairobi at 06:55 local time, with its final destination London . At 8:23 a.m., the plane landed in Addis Ababa for a scheduled stopover. While taxiing to the starting position for the onward flight, the pilots reported several dead birds on the runway at 09:32, which were then removed by a fire engine. The take-off clearance was given at 09:38:40 a.m. About in the middle of the runway, shortly before reaching the decision speed (V 1 ), the machine with the nose landing gear rolled over a metal part, which caused the right front tire to burst. The pilots decided to abort take-off and set reverse thrust , but the aircraft took off shortly before the end of the runway. During the short flight, part of the runway lights tore open a tank in the left wing . The machine came to a stop about 60 meters behind the runway, in about 10 meters of sloping terrain, and caught fire because of the leaking fuel. In the course of the investigation, the metal part that was rolled over was identified as a lost part of the engine cover of a Cessna 185 . A possible main cause is an incorrectly installed spare part in the braking system of the VC10, which resulted in a partial loss of braking force. As a result, the aircraft could no longer be stopped in time before the end of the runway. 8 of the 11 crew members and 35 of the 96 passengers were killed by the impact and the resulting fire.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ East African Airways. In: www.mccrow.org.uk. Archived from the original on June 20, 2009 ; accessed on July 10, 2016 .
  2. ^ Accident statistics East African Airways Corp. - EAAC , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 28, 2018.
  3. ^ Accident report DC-3 VP-KHH , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 28, 2018.
  4. ^ Accident report DC-3 VP-KJP , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 28, 2018.
  5. ICAO Aircraft Accident Digest No. 21, Circular 132-AN / 93 (English), pp. 3–21.
  6. ^ Accident report VC10 5X-UVA , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 28, 2018.