Evergreen International Airlines Flight 17
| Evergreen International Airlines Flight 17 | |
|---|---|
,_Evergreen_International_Airlines_JP5954210.jpg) The misfortune machine |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Loss of control after opening the cargo door in flight |
| place | near Saginaw , Texas , United States
|
| date | March 18, 1989 |
| Fatalities | 2 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type |
Douglas DC-9-33RC (CF)
|
| operator |
Evergreen International Airlines
|
| Mark |
N931F
|
| Departure airport |
Kelly Air Force Base , San Antonio , Texas , United States
|
| Stopover |
Carswell Air Force Base , Fort Worth , Texas , United States
|
| Destination airport |
Tinker Air Force Base , Oklahoma City , Oklahoma , United States
|
| Passengers | 0 |
| crew | 2 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
On March 18, 1989, a Douglas DC-9-33RC (CF) of Evergreen International Airlines had an accident on Evergreen International Airlines Flight 17 . The two pilots of the machine were killed in the incident.
plane
The affected machine was a Douglas DC-9-33RC (CF), which was finally assembled at the McDonnell Douglas plant in Long Beach , California . The aircraft had the factory number 47192 , it was the 287th Douglas DC-9 from ongoing production. The machine was rolled out on March 7, 1968. The machine initially received the test identification N8963U . The DC-9 was delivered to the first customer KLM on April 17, 1968. In this context, the machine was approved with the aircraft registration PH-DNN and was given the name City of Vienna . In December 1985 the machine was sold to the aircraft leasing company PK Finans International , which immediately leased the DC-9 back to KLM. On March 3, 1987, the machine was delivered to United Aviation Services , which approved it with the aircraft registration N35UA . On April 16, 1987, the Con-Av Corporation bought the machine, which from then on acted as a lessor. The machine was then converted into a cargo plane and leased to Evergreen International Airlines, which approved this on May 22, 1987. As of August 1987, the Wilmington Trust Company was the new lessor. On October 14, 1987 the machine was re-registered under the new registration number N931F. The twin- engine, medium - range, narrow-body aircraft was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-9A engines. By the time of the accident, the machine had completed a total of 41,931 operating hours, which accounted for 40,808 take-offs and landings.
crew
There was a two-person crew on board the machine, consisting of a flight captain and a first officer. The flight captain Gerald J. McCall was hired on September 4, 1984 by Evergreen International Airlines. He had 7,238 hours of flight experience, 1,938 hours of which in the cockpit of the Douglas DC-9. First Officer Thomas B. Johnston flew for Evergreen International Airlines since July 25, 1988. By the time of the accident, he had completed 10,863 flight hours, of which he had completed 1,213 hours in the cockpit of the Douglas DC-9.
Flight plan
The Evergreen International Airlines flight was carried out on behalf of the United States Air Force . It was a domestic scheduled cargo flight. The flight took place under flight number 4U17 and with the radio call sign Logair 931 .
the accident
The machine, which took off from Kelly Air Force Base, reached Carswell Air Force Base at 1:12 a.m. local time. The cargo was unloaded by members of the United States Air Force , who also loaded the machine with new cargo for the onward flight. The engines started at 02:04 a.m. The crew received instructions for taxiing to runway 17. The take-off took place at 02:09 local time. While the machine was rotating , or immediately afterwards, the main loading door opened. The pilots declared that they were in distress and let the machine rise to 2500 feet before initiating a right turn. Five nautical miles north of the airport, the captain made a slight right turn for the transverse approach. The machine flew over the approach baseline and the master intensified the curve in order to align the machine with the runway. During this maneuver, the draft tore the cargo door open so that it opened to the end position and was thus located above the aircraft fuselage. Suddenly opening the door changed the yaw and roll behavior of the machine.
The master, who was possibly irritated and partially disoriented by the events, apparently did not notice the increase in the roll and yaw angles and therefore did not correct them until a critical roll angle and a loss of altitude occurred. The DC-9 hit the ground in a supine position with the aircraft nose pointing down and a roll angle to the left and broke apart, killing both pilots.
root cause
The accident investigation was conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The final report was published on October 18, 1990. It was found that when the first officer closed the main cargo door, he did not hold the door control valve T-handle in the closed position long enough for the locking hooks to click into place. External displays for locking the door were incorrectly attached, so that the first officer thought that the door was locked correctly if the handle pointed more to the words 'locked' than to the words 'unlocked'. It also found that one of the two open door warning light switches was not working properly. Due to the wiring in this area, this malfunction rendered the entire door warning system ineffective.
The exact cause of the loss of control could not be determined. Contributing factors to the accident were identified as inadequate procedures by Evergreen International Airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to check the outer lock cylinders of the cargo door, as well as a lack of instructions from McDonnell Douglas on how the crew should behave in the event of the cargo door being opened in flight . Another factor that was noted was the FAA's failure to identify modifications to the warning device for unintentional opening of the cargo door on Douglas DC-9 cargo aircraft, especially since such incidents were already known from the past.
