VARIG flight 820

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VARIG flight 820
Varig Boeing 707 Volpati-1.jpg

an identical Boeing 707 from VARIG

Accident summary
Accident type Cabin fire
place Saulx-les-Chartreux
date July 11, 1973
Fatalities 123
Survivors 11
Aircraft
Aircraft type Boeing 707-345C
operator VARIG
Mark PP-VJZ
Departure airport Galeão International Airport , Rio de Janeiro
Destination airport Paris-Orly Airport
Passengers 117
crew 17th
Lists of aviation accidents

On July 11, 1973, a fire broke out on board a Boeing 707 , which was on VARIG flight 820 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris . The crew managed to make an emergency landing in a field near Paris-Orly Airport . Although the fuselage of the aircraft was only slightly damaged during the outbound landing , 123 passengers died in the accident. With the exception of one crew member, all those killed were suffocated by fire gases .

the accident

The VARIG Boeing 707 that crashed was on a transatlantic scheduled flight from Rio de Janeiro via Paris to London . Due to the long flight duration, the machine had been assigned two crews. At the time of the incident, Flight Captain Gilberto Araujo da Silva was the pilot in charge on board.

About 30 minutes before the scheduled arrival in Paris-Orly, a flight attendant informed the pilots that smoke was coming from one of the rear toilet cabins. At this point in time, the machine was approximately 41 kilometers (22 NM ) southwest of the destination airport. Immediately afterwards, at 14:58 local time (13:58 GMT ), the pilots informed Paris air traffic control about “problems with fire on board” and asked for immediate clearance for an emergency descent . The controller issued permission to descend to an altitude of 3000 feet and clearance for a direct approach to runway 07 in Paris-Orly. During the descent, the cabin crew carried out fire fighting with handheld fire extinguishers . Due to the strong smoke development, the seat of the fire could not be located in the on-board toilet, so that the attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful. The passenger cabin then filled very quickly with smoke and fire gases. In order to remain able to act, the flight attendants put on their portable oxygen masks. The breathing masks for the passengers were not deployed.

Around 15 kilometers from the airport, the purser informed the pilots that the situation on board was rapidly deteriorating and that the passengers were in danger of suffocating. At the same time smoke penetrated the cockpit. At 3:01 p.m. (14:01 GMT) the pilots asked the air traffic controller to be allowed to descend to 2,000 feet and then put on their masks. The smoke became so thick within the next minute that the on-board instruments could no longer be read. The crew decided to make an emergency landing immediately. The flight captain had to lean out of the open side window of the cockpit to find a suitable landing site.

At 3:03 p.m. local time (14:03 GMT), five minutes after the fire was discovered, the Boeing 707 landed five kilometers west of Orly Airport, near the village of Saulx-les-Chartreux , on an onion field that was just being harvested. When touching down, the three undercarriages broke . The four engines and the tip of the left wing were torn off when the aircraft skidded over the ground. The fuselage, however, showed hardly any damage. The two pilots and eight other crew members, all of whom were in the front area of ​​the cabin or in the cockpit, survived the accident almost unharmed. The flight engineer on duty , who was not wearing seat belts, died on impact.

Because of the thick smoke, it was not possible for the survivors or the farmers who had rushed to rescue other people from the machine. The first rescue workers arrived at the scene of the accident six minutes after landing. They found an unconscious 19-year-old passenger who had fled to the front part of the cabin when the fire broke out. He was the only surviving passenger.

Cause of accident and consequences

The autopsy of the victims revealed that the inmates were killed by inhaling high concentrations of carbon monoxide and other combustion gases. Most of them probably died before landing. The decision of the crew not to eject the passenger masks was considered correct by the investigators. The mixture of oxygen and cabin air flowing out of the masks would likely have made the fire spread faster. In addition, the passengers continued to inhale toxic gases through the mixture of cabin air.

The cause of the fire in the rear right toilet could not be clarified. Investigators assumed a short circuit or a discarded cigarette that ignited the contents of the waste container under the sink. The fire then spread to other facilities. The fire was facilitated by the materials used. The waste container and other components in the toilet turned out to be not fireproof and therefore did not meet the requirements.

The commission of inquiry made a series of recommendations that were subsequently adopted as binding standards. This included the introduction of a general smoking ban in the on-board toilets.

Trivia

Due to his quick action and flying performance, flight captain Gilberto Araujo da Silva received several awards and was hailed as a hero in the Brazilian and French media.

Five and a half years later, Gilberto Araujo da Silva was assigned to VARIG flight 967 , which disappeared over the Pacific on January 30, 1979 without a trace. He was initially considered missing and was officially declared dead six months later.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e Varig 707 had toilet fire. (PDF) In: Flight International . Reed Business Information, April 17, 1976, p. 995 , accessed July 15, 2014 .
  2. a b Varig 820: "Total Fire!" In: Austrian Wings - Austria's aviation magazine. Reelworx, July 11, 2013, accessed July 15, 2014 .
  3. ^ Accident report B-707 PP-VJZ , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on January 16, 2019.
  4. ^ David Gero: Aviation catastrophes, accidents with passenger aircraft since 1950 , Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-613-01580-3 .
  5. Gilberto Araújo da Silva ( Memento from July 11, 2013 on WebCite )

Coordinates: 48 ° 42 ′ 27.2 "  N , 2 ° 17 ′ 10.2"  E