Llandow aviation accident
| Llandow aviation accident | |
|---|---|
 The G-AKBY aircraft involved in the accident at Wunstorf Air Base during the Berlin Airlift |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Stall in landing approach due to incorrect weight distribution |
| place | at Sigingstone , Wales , United Kingdom
|
| date | March 12, 1950 |
| Fatalities | 80 |
| Survivors | 3 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type |
Avro 689 Tudor Mark V
|
| operator |
Air Flight Limited under the name Fairflight
|
| Mark |
G-AKBY
|
| Surname | Star girl |
| Departure airport |
Dublin Airport , Ireland
|
| Destination airport |
RAF Llandow , Wales , United Kingdom
|
| Passengers | 78 |
| crew | 5 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
The Llandow accident happened on a charter flight of the British airline Air Flight , operating under the name Fairflight , on March 12, 1950. The Avro 689 Tudor Mark V passenger plane used on that day , with which a flight from Dublin to Llandow in Wales was carried out, suffered a stall on the approach and fell to the ground, killing 80 of the 83 people on board. At that time it was the world's most serious aircraft accident.
plane
The aircraft was an Avro 689 Tudor Mark V, a version of the Avro Tudor originally designed for 44 passengers. The machine named Star Girl with the aircraft registration G-AKBY was built in 1947 and had the serial number 1417. The four-engine long - haul aircraft was equipped with four Rolls-Royce Merlin 621 engines. After the disappearance of the Star Ariel and the disappearance of the Star Tiger , the image of the Avro Tudor was so damaged that machines of this type were only used as cargo planes. The G-AKBY was one of two Tudors used by Don Bennett , the former director of British South American Airways (BSAA), initially for the transport of general cargo and later as a tanker during the Berlin Airlift in his company Air Flight. After the end of the Berlin blockade, the G-AKBY was converted back into a 78-passenger airliner, which Bennett operated in his new company, Fairflight.
Passengers, crew and flight plan
The plane was privately hired to fly rugby union fans to Ireland and back to an international match . The passengers wanted to watch a match between the Welsh National Rugby Union Team and the Irish National Rugby Union Team at Ravenhill Stadium in Dublin . The game was played as part of the Five Nation Championship and ended in a 6-3 win for the Welsh team. Originally a flight with only 72 passengers was planned, six people were later booked for this flight. There were consequently 78 passengers on board, the crew of the machine was five people.
the accident
The flight was carried out on this day in favorable weather conditions. No special incidents occurred on the outbound flight. Eyewitnesses indicate that at 3:05 p.m. the aircraft was approaching runway 28 at Llandow airfield at an unusually low altitude. The landing gear was extended. The master tried to correct the descent by increasing the engine power and let the machine climb. The aircraft rose steeply to 100 m, the pitch angle increasing until it reached 35 degrees. Then there was a stall at a height of 100 meters, the machine crashed into a field behind a row of trees near the small hamlet of Sigingstone . The Tudor's right wing tip hit the ground first, followed by the aircraft's nose and left wing, which tore off the fuselage on contact with the ground. The plane turned clockwise and came to a stop. There was no explosion on impact and no fire broke out afterwards.
Victims and survivors
Two passengers, who were sitting on additional seats that had been mounted in the rear part of the cabin, left the machine on their own and unharmed. A third man who was in the bathroom at the time of the crash and lost consciousness on impact survived but was in the hospital for four months. Eight other survivors of the first impact later died from their injuries in hospitals, bringing the final death toll to 80. Among the dead were 75 passengers and all five crew members; the death toll was composed of 73 men and 7 women.
root cause
After the accident, the British Department of Civil Aviation set up a commission of inquiry to investigate the cause of the crash. The commission concluded that the likely cause of the accident was the incorrect loading of the aircraft, which significantly shifted the machine's center of gravity backwards. The effectiveness of the elevators was impaired by the incorrect loading . Another contributing factor was the fact that the machine at the time of the accident was being controlled by a 25-year-old and therefore relatively inexperienced pilot.
meaning
At the time, it was the accident with the highest number of fatalities, surpassing the crash of the airship USS Akron (ZRS-4) in 1933 with 74 fatalities. Regarding the number of victims, the accident was exceeded on December 20, 1952 in the accident of a Douglas C-124 Globemaster II of the United States Air Force with 87 deaths. In civil aviation, only the plane collision over the Grand Canyon exceeded the number of victims in this accident, with 128 fatalities. It was not until 1958 that there were more deaths on board a single civilian airliner on KLM flight 607-E with 99 victims.
Commemoration
Three members of the Abercarn Rugby Football Club were among the victims . The Llanharan Rugby Football Club lost six members of his team play. Both clubs commemorated the victims by incorporating symbols into their club badges referring to the incident. The Abercarn Rugby Football Club logo has since included an airplane propeller. On March 25, 1950, at the final game of the 1950 championship against the French national rugby union team at Cardiff Arms Park, the crowd observed a minute's silence while five trumpeters paid their respects to the victims of the plane crash. In 1990, 40 years after the crash, a plaque was unveiled near the crash site.
swell
- Accident report Tudor V, G-AKBY , Aviation Safety Network
- Contemporary news article on the accident , YouTube / British Pathé
- The 1950 Welsh Triple Crown & Llandow Air Disaster , World Rugby Museum
- Crash of an Avro 689 Tudor 5 in RAF Llandow: 80 killed , B3A - Bureau of Aircraft Accident Archives
Individual evidence
- ↑ 60 years since Welsh rugby air disaster at Llandow , BBC News , March 12, 2010.
- ^ Brian Turpin: The Tudor family . In: Airplane Monthly June 1977, pp. 299-305
- ↑ Archie Jackson: Bennett's Tudors . In: Airplane Monthly May 1994, pp. 26-29
- ↑ Air-Britain Archive: Casualty compendium part 50 (English), September 1993, pp. 81/82.
- ^ Godwin, Terry (1984): The international Rugby Championship 1883-1983 London: Willow Books, p. 238.
Coordinates: 51 ° 26 ′ 4 " N , 3 ° 28 ′ 39" W.