Air accident involving a Handley Page Herald of the Alia near Damascus
| Air accident involving a Handley Page Herald of the Alia near Damascus | |
|---|---|
 A Handley Page HPR-7 Herald machine |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Structural failure |
| place | near Al Dimas , Syria;_Flag_of_Syria_(1963%E2%80%931972).svg){kind=small}
|
| date | April 10, 1965 |
| Fatalities | 54 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type |
 Handley Page HPR-7 Dart Herald 207
|
| operator |
 Alia Royal Jordanian Airlines
|
| Mark |
JY-ACQ
|
| Departure airport |
Beirut Airport , Lebanon
|
| Destination airport |
Amman-Marka Airport , Jordan
|
| Passengers | 50 |
| crew | 4th |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
The accident involving a Handley Page Herald of the Alia near Damascus occurred on April 10, 1965, when a Handley Page HPR-7 Dart Herald 207 of the Alia Royal Jordanian Airlines (JY-ACQ) , with which an international charter flight from Beirut to Amman was carried out , broke apart in flight and fell to the ground 20 kilometers west-northwest of Damascus . All 54 people on board were killed in the accident. It was the Alia’s first incident with a plane loss and fatality, and it’s by far the most serious incident by a Handley Page Herald.
machine
The machine concerned was a 1963 Handley Page HPR-7 Dart Herald 207 with the serial number 170 , which was originally built for the Jordanian Air Force , where it was put into service with the aircraft registration number 110 . The machine was later handed over to the Alia Royal Jordanian Airlines and approved with the aircraft registration JY-ACQ . The twin-engine short-haul passenger aircraft was equipped with two Rolls-Royce Dart turboprop engines.
Passengers and crew
50 passengers had taken the flight from Beirut to Amman. There was a crew of four on board, consisting of a flight captain, a first officer and two flight attendants. The captain had 2,021 hours of flying experience, 1,161 hours of which in the Handley Page Herald. The first officer who was the pilot flying on the flight had 1,053 hours of flight experience, 102 of which with the Handley Page Herald.
the accident
The plane took off from Beirut at 10:55 p.m. local time for an international charter flight to Amman. The pilots were instructed to raise the aircraft to flight level FL 135 and to continue the flight on this flight level. At 11:14 p.m., the pilots reported to air traffic control in Damascus and gave Dakoue in eastern Lebanon as their flight position. They stated that they were climbing from FL 120 to FL 135 and stated that they would fly over the radio beacon in Damascus at around 11:19 p.m. This was the last radio message from the machine.
Search for the machine
When the pilot on duty had not heard anything from the aircraft at 11.20 p.m., he tried several times in vain to contact the pilot. At 11:35 p.m., an incoming call indicated that an eastbound plane between the Syrian-Lebanese border and Damascus had crashed. Some witnesses said the machine was on fire before the crash. It soon turned out that it was the missing Herald and that the machine had crashed on Syrian territory in a mountainous area near Al Dimas , near the border with Lebanon, while it was flying a course of 340 degrees.
Rescue operation
The crash site was on a mountainside with an incline of 45 degrees and at an altitude of 1,280 meters. The crashed machine burned and although the fire brigade arrived very quickly, they found it difficult to extinguish the fire. This was because, due to the nature of the terrain, the fire engines could only drive up to a kilometer away from the fire and fire fighters had to walk the rest of the way to the crash site with fire extinguishers . The fire extinguishers did not perform well enough to stop the serious fire.
Accident investigation
The examination of the wreckage indicated that the machine was flat on the ground and had hardly any horizontal speed. A number of objects were found along the machine's flight path. This included a large leather upholstery that was found five kilometers from the crash site as well as a frame around a console for the ceiling lighting from the middle front cabin area, a meal tray and two passports 500 meters behind the location of the first find. Other objects were found 1.5 kilometers from the main wreck, including a wooden glass shelf, a cargo lashing ring and other personal items such as a camera. A wire mesh box and the bodies of eight fall victims were recovered 700 to 800 meters from the crash site. It was assumed that these were thrown out of the machine by centrifugal forces immediately before the impact when it fell to the ground in an uncontrolled manner in a sharp left turn. None of these finds showed any signs of fire. Only small fragments of wood and leather and small parts of the aircraft insulation showed traces of fire, whereby the investigators came to the conclusion that these parts might have been carried away by convection currents from the fire at the crash site.
Although witnesses stated that the machine was on fire before impact, no evidence of pre-impact fire could be found. The investigators found that the first thing that happened before any fire developed was a sudden structural failure of unknown origin on the machine. The option that a fire had occurred between the structural failure and the impact, the traces of which had been lost due to the fire after impact, was found to be conceivable. The bottle on the port side of the engine extinguishing system was found to be empty. However, since the drive head, which was made of a light metal alloy, had melted away, this did not automatically mean that the engine extinguishing system had even been activated. The starboard bottle was not recovered. However, since the fire was particularly severe in the area in which it was attached, it was assumed that the bottle had fallen victim to the fire. Three carbon dioxide capsules from hand-held fire extinguishers were recovered from inside the machine; the extinguishers had not been used.
The investigation of the propellers and engines revealed that the engines were running on impact, albeit under light load. The starboard side engine generated more power than the port side. All rudders and auxiliary rudders were located on the main wreck, as were all exits, emergency exits and the emergency hatch for ditching, which were all closed when the machine hit the ground.
The investigators came to the conclusion that in the flight five kilometers from the crash site there must have been a structural failure of considerable extent on the machine, in which several objects were sucked out of the fuselage into the open. The position of some of the objects found indicated almost with certainty that the structural failure had started in the transition between the cockpit and cabin area. The severe damage to the wreck caused by the fire prevented the exact location of this first structural failure from being located. Investigators believed that the structural failure was so severe that it affected rudder control. In the last moments of the flight until the crash, the machine was no longer controllable.
The investigators considered it likely that when the electrical circuits were interrupted, which had been triggered by the structural failure in the front part of the fuselage, the on-board radio would also be switched off.
No evidence of the effects of explosives or the transport of explosive cargo through the machine was found.
context
Less than a month earlier, the first total loss and fatal incident of a Handley Page Herald had occurred on Eastern Provincial Airways Flight 102 . The accident occurred under similar circumstances: During the climb, there was a sudden structural failure, which also originated between the cockpit and the cabin area. In this case, significant corrosion of unknown origin could be determined as the cause, the structural failure occurred along the middle lower fuselage stringer.
swell
- Accident report Herald 207, JY-ACQ , ICAO Circular 88-AN / 74, pages 72–76.
- Crash of a Handley Page HPR.7 Dart Herald 207 near Damascus: 54 killed , B3A - Bureau of Aircraft Accident Archives
- Accident report Herald 207, JY-ACQ , Aviation Safety Network
Individual evidence
- ↑ Production list and operating history of the machine , rzjets.net
Coordinates: 33 ° 34 ′ 32 " N , 36 ° 4 ′ 42" E