Grytøya aircraft accident
| Grytøya aircraft accident | |
|---|---|
.jpg) A DHC-6 Twin Otter of the 719th Squadron of the Norwegian Air Force in Bodø |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Controlled flight into terrain |
| place |
Grytøya , Norway
|
| date | July 11, 1972 |
| Fatalities | 17th |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Injured | 0 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type |
 de Havilland Canada DHC-6-100 Twin Otter
|
| operator |
Norwegian Air Force
|
| Mark |
67-056
|
| Departure airport |
Bardufoss Airport , Norway
|
| Stopover |
Stokmarknes Airport, Skagen , Norway
|
| Destination airport |
Bodø Airport , Norway
|
| Passengers | 14th |
| crew | 3 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
The Grytøya aircraft accident occurred on July 11, 1972. On that day, a de Havilland Canada DHC-6-100 Twin Otter of the Norwegian Air Forces was used for a domestic flight from Bardufoss Airport to Bodø Airport with a stopover at Stokmarknes Airport, Skagen was flown against a mountain on the island of Grytøya . There were no survivors among the 14 passengers and three crew members. It is the most serious aircraft accident in the Norwegian Air Force since the Second World War.
machine
The machine was a military version of a de Havilland Canada DHC-6-100 Twin Otter with the serial number 54 . The machine was finalized in 1967 at de Havilland Canada's facility in Downsview , Ontario . The machine was rolled out on June 16, 1967. The Twin Otter built for the Norwegian Air Force was given the military serial number 67-056 . The machine was intended for the 719th Squadron in Bodø . The first flight took place on June 28, 1967. The delivery flight was carried out between July 26, 1967 and August 1, 1967. Since the Twin Otter is a short-haul aircraft, numerous stopovers for refueling were planned on the flight. The machine took off from Toronto / Downsview Airport and initially flew to Canadian Forces Base Bagotville . From there, Schefferville Airport was next approached. On the third flight segment, the Hudson Strait was flown over and the machine landed at Frobisher Bay Airport . This was followed by the overflight to Greenland , where the machine landed on the Sondrestrom Air Base . The fifth leg of the flight led to Iceland and ended with a landing at Keflavík Airport . This was followed by an overflight to Norway, where the machine made another stopover at Bergen Airport . There were further stopovers at Kjeller Airport and Trondheim Airport before the plane finally reached Bodø Airport . In addition to its serial number, the machine received the identification code K-XJ from the Norwegian Air Force , which was applied to the fuselage over a large area like an aircraft registration number. The twin-engine light military transport aircraft was equipped with two turboprop engines of the type Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-34 equipped.
Passengers and crew
There were 14 passengers and a crew of three on board the machine. The passengers were members of the armed forces and their families. There were five women and four children among the passengers.
Course of the flight and course of the accident
 
| |||
Overview map of flight route and crash site |
The flight took off from Bardufoss Airport at 3:18 pm. Due to difficult weather conditions, the captain was advised not to make the stopover in Skagen and to fly directly to Bodø Airport. The captain disregarded this recommendation and decided to fly over Skagen. On the way, the Twin Otter flew into a weather zone with low cloud cover, rain and fog. The machine was flown against the 800 meter high mountain Lille Tussen on the island of Grytøya. At 3:43 p.m. local time, the Twin Otter hit 20 meters below the mountain top. All 17 inmates were killed.
Salvage
The recovery of the bodies and wreckage turned out to be difficult. The rescue teams had to overcome numerous ledges. An application by the Norwegian police to support the rescue work by using helicopters of the Air Force was refused because the operation was found to be too dangerous. The rescue teams had to saw up the corpses and carry them away in rucksacks. It took five days to recover all of the dead.
root cause
It was found that the machine had gone off course northwards. According to the flight plan, a west-south-west course should be flown and the south-east end of the island should be overflown.
It was found that the flight captain had a blood alcohol level of 1.5 per thousand, and he had not slept enough before the flight. The flight captain had attended a party at Lakselv Airport the previous evening . A civil servant watched him sit at the bar and drink copious amounts of alcohol. When the bar closed, he went into the basement and drank more alcohol. He was so drunk that he could not stand on his feet and was leaning against a pillar. The witness asked the captain whether he should fly the next day, to which he said yes. The flight began just four hours later. The captain boarded the machine with a blood alcohol level of around 2.5 per thousand.
Publication of the 2005 investigation report
The full accident report, initially withheld by the Defense Department, was made available in 2005. It showed that the captain's serious drinking problems had been known to the highest levels of the Air Force for years. In the meantime, the captain had been given a flight ban due to his alcohol problem, but this was lifted at a later point in time.
After the accident, the relatives received a travel insurance statement according to the insurance policy, which all civilian passengers who flew on the machines of the armed forces had to take out. Since the bereaved relatives had no real background to the accident, they were unable to claim compensation.
It was not until the file was made available in 2005 that the details became known. This resulted in the relatives suing the state. In the district court, the prosecutor argued that the case was time barred. This met with great incomprehension among the relatives, since the background to the case was later revealed to be due to a concealment by the Ministry of Defense. The bereaved's lawsuit did not succeed in either the district court or the appeals court, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
In 2012, Defense Minister Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen apologized to the relatives of the accident victims for the long-lasting uncertainty in which they had lived. However, she stated that she was not empowered to take the initiative to re-examine the matter as the incident occurred 40 years earlier and has since been resolved.
swell
- Accident report DHC-6 Twin Otter, 67-056 in the Aviation Safety Network
- Crash of a De Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter 100 on Mt Lille Tussen: 17 killed , B3A - Bureau of Aircraft Accident Archives
- Grytøyaulykken (Norwegian)
- Thor Harald Hendriksen: 40 år siden Grytøya-ulykken , Verdens Gang , July 11, 2012 (Norwegian).
- Ståle Hansen: Defendant scandaleflyging etter 40 år , Norsk rikskringkasting , October 30, 2012 (Norwegian).
- Operation history and incident report in the Twin Otter Archive
- Operational history and accident report , Twin Otter World
Coordinates: 68 ° 57 ′ 40 ″ N , 16 ° 24 ′ 19 ″ E