El Al flight 1862
| El Al flight 1862 | |
|---|---|
 The crash site in Amsterdam |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Loss of control after a double engine stall |
| place | Amsterdam , Netherlands |
| date | 4th October 1992 |
| Fatalities | 4th |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Fatalities on the ground | 39 |
| Injured on the ground | 20th |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 747-258F |
| operator | El-Al |
| Mark | 4X-AXG |
| Passengers | 1 |
| crew | 3 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
Coordinates: 52 ° 19 ′ N , 4 ° 59 ′ E El-Al flight 1862 was a cargo flight operated by the Israeli airline El Al , on which a Boeing 747-200F crashedon October 4, 1992. The machine crashed into a block of flats in Amsterdam-Zuidoost due to material failure , killing all four people on board and 39 on the ground.
General
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The Boeing 747-258F , a cargo plane operated by the Israeli state-owned airline El Al , was on a flight from New York City (John F. Kennedy International Airport) to Tel Aviv via Amsterdam .
It had a crew of three and an airline employee on board. After landing the plane in the Netherlands on 4 October, a Sunday lifted, at 18:22 from the airport Schiphol from.
Course of events
① Engines 3 and 4 break off.
② Location of engines 3 and 4.
③ First emergency call “Mayday” by the pilots.
④ The pilots report a fire in the engine.
⑤ The pilots report problems with the landing flaps.
⑥ The aircraft can no longer be controlled.
⑦ Crash location
During the climb, the inner engine (engine no. 3) tore off the right wing . The reason was a fatigue fracture or a material defect in one of the four shear bolts that hold a 747 engine together. Shear bolts are designed in such a way that they break at a predetermined breaking point when major engine damage occurs with strong vibrations . In this way, it should be possible to drop a defective engine in a controlled manner without causing major damage to the wing. After the first shear bolt broke, the remaining three also yielded as intended due to the overload at their predetermined breaking points.
The torn off engine pulled forward under full thrust and then turned sideways to the right into the outer engine (engine no. 4) of the right wing, which then also broke off. The two breaking away engines damaged the nose edge and the slats of the right wing considerably, tore off parts of it and damaged the fairing over a large area. This demolition of about 10 m² of the fairing dramatically deteriorated the aerodynamic properties of the right wing. The loss of the engines also caused the bursting of two hydraulic lines and thus the failure of two hydraulic systems as well as damage to the landing flaps of this wing.
The reduced lift of the damaged wing was partially compensated in this flight phase (still in the climb ) by the missing weight of the two torn off engines. Although the engine tilted to the right, the captain was initially able to bring it back under control.
The aircraft was very difficult to control due to the one-sided thrust with a full cargo load, the hydraulics, which were limited to a single system, and the damage to the fairing on the right wing. The copilot made an emergency call and asked for an immediate return to Schiphol Airport . The pilot granted permission. The master managed to fly a necessary loop to reduce altitude for the landing approach . The crew had no knowledge of the actual extent of the damage and suspected a fire on engines 3 and 4. They were also unable to identify the severe damage to the wing.
At the beginning of the approach, the master reduced the speed in accordance with the procedure required for this. Than at about 400 km / the slats and flaps h exports only one side, the inevitable happened: By reducing the speed of the severely damaged right wing lost due to a partial or complete stall their buoyancy, while the left wing low by the extension of the high lift aids for Speeds gained enormously in lift. As a result , the plane rolled to one side in an uncontrollable manner. About nine minutes after take-off, the machine crashed almost vertically into a ten-story apartment building in the southeastern Amsterdam district of Bijlmermeer (coordinates 52 ° 19 ′ 8 ″ N , 4 ° 58 ′ 30 ″ E ).
More than 50 apartments were on fire, and leaking kerosene set trees, shrubs and lawns on fire. The Amsterdam fire brigade and the airport's fire engines reached the scene of the accident around 6:40 p.m. After learning over the radio that it was not a fully occupied passenger plane but a cargo plane that had crashed, as initially assumed, and that they did not find any victims on the plane, the rescue teams concentrated on the building. All apartments were systematically searched and initially 20 injured were found. At 9 p.m. the fire was under control.
A little later, demolition companies began to remove concrete parts with cranes and excavators . The rescue teams finally recovered 43 dead, among them the four members of the crew of the 747. The fact that the number of victims was not higher was attributed to the fact that many residents were not at home at this time on Sunday evening.
root cause
The reason for the demolition of engine no. 3 was the breakage of one of the four shear bolts. This was proven by the investigation of the torn off engines and later found in the Gooimeer . There was a material defect or a fatigue break here. However, both a material defect and an impending fatigue fracture should have been discovered during the routine inspections , which had not happened. As a result, Boeing 747 operators were obliged to inspect or replace all such shear bolts using new methods.
As it turned out on the basis of later simulator flights, the crash could no longer be stopped after the damage to the right wing. As soon as the speed is reduced for the initiation of the landing approach, a stall inevitably sets in on the damaged wing, and the aircraft gets into an uncontrollable state. There is no way to land an aircraft with such severe structural damage, so the crash was inevitable. That would not have changed if the crew had recognized the true extent of the damage.
The charge
For a long time it was unclear what the transport machine had loaded. At first, the airline only spoke of flowers and perfume . Armaments such as rifle ammunition and spare parts for missiles ( AIM-9 Sidewinder and Patriot ) are now counted as cargo. In 1998, the airline El Al announced that 190 liters of the chemical dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP) were on board the aircraft. This chemical is mainly used as a fuel additive and flame retardant . But it is also the starting material for the production of the nerve gas sarin . The chemical should be shipped to the Israel Institute for Biological Research with approval from the US Department of Commerce . An Israeli government spokesman said it was to be used there to test gas masks and filters against chemical attacks. It was properly declared on the loading list . The Dutch Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken confirmed that he was aware of the cargo. An investigative commission set up by the Dutch parliament in 1999 came to the conclusion that there were only minor, explainable inconsistencies in the documentation of the cargo and no evidence of forged cargo documents. The charge did not pose a health risk for residents or the rescue workers.
Depleted uranium was also used as ballast in machines of this type to prevent vibrations. The Dutch parliament's commission concluded that poisoning of large groups was unlikely. However, it is explicitly possible that individual uranium oxide particles have inhaled.
Representation in the media
- Crash in Amsterdam (original title: Amsterdam Air Crash ). Seconds before the accident [Season 3; Episode 2].
- High-rise catastrophe (Original title: High Rise Catastrophe ). Mayday alarm in the cockpit [Season 15; Episode 3].
See also
Web links
- The crash site
- The affected apartment block
- The fire after the crash
- Photo of the El-Al machine on July 20, 1992 at Amsterdam Airport
Individual evidence
- ↑ Aircraft accident data and report in the Aviation Safety Network (English)
- ↑ a b Israel says El Al crash chemical 'non-toxic' (English) , BBC. October 2, 1998. Archived from the original on August 18, 2003. Retrieved July 2, 2006.
- ↑ Data sheet Dimethyl methylphosphonate from Sigma-Aldrich , accessed on July 27, 2017 ( PDF ).
- ↑ Israel: Everything is not entirely kosher . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1998 ( online - October 5, 1998 ).
- ^ A b Joel Greenberg: Nerve-Gas Element Was in El Al Plane Lost in 1992 Crash (English) . In: New York Times , October 2, 1998. Retrieved October 11, 2007.
- ↑ a b c Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal: Enquête vliegramp Bijlmermeer EINDRAPPORT ( Dutch ) officielebekendmakingen.nl. April 22, 1999. Retrieved July 20, 2017.