A Heritage of Convair 880 and 990 Aircraft Incidents

Despite the fact that the Convair 880’s and 990’s incident historical past can be considered extensive, specially in ratio to the quantity that entered provider, a number of features should be deemed. In the 15-calendar year time period between 1960, the type’s calendar year of assistance entry, to 1974, there were being 7 deadly mishaps. Four involved the CV-990A, whose output whole was only a 3rd of the entire program’s. But the very first incident did not come about until eventually the initial CV-880 had plied the skies, in divergent nations around the world and climactic circumstances, for seven years.

Fatalities for every plane also ought to be viewed as-from a minimal of a person to a high of 155. A few accidents took put all through the takeoff phase and two during the cruise phase, but they were the end result of intentionally planted explosive equipment and not of airframe or powerplant deficiency or structure flaw. A lot of, due only to fate, transpired in clusters, only days apart.

“The 880 attained a good protection record in passenger support, but experienced numerous schooling mishaps and a number of mishaps transpired following the airplanes ended up transformed to freighter configurations,” according to Jon Proctor’s point of view in Convair 880 and 990 (Environment Transportation Press, 1996, p. 82). “At least 15 hull losses ended up recorded, such as various which had been repairable, but composed off because of to financial factors.”

This chapter examines true passenger-carrying accidents.

The 1st of these happened on November 5, 1967 when plane VR-HFX, a CV-880M operated by Cathay Pacific, embarked on a multi-sector flight from Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Worldwide Airport to Calcutta with intermediate stops in Saigon and Bangkok. Piloted by Captain J. R. E. Howell, an Australian, and serviced by 10 other crew associates, the jetliner, with 116 travellers on board, imitated its takeoff operate in good climate, but aborted the endeavor when it professional a robust vibration and veered to the proper at 122 knots. Irrespective of reverse thrust and toe brake programs, inadequate length remained in which to cease.

Sliding off the runway and careening over a seawall, it plunged into Hong Kong Harbor, shedding its nose in the method. It in the end came to relaxation 100 yards from the runway’s finish and in shallow water. No fireplace or explosion adopted.

The captain went into the cabin to assist with the evacuation. Even though he encountered confusion, there was tiny panic and escape was orderly. Helicopters and boats converged on the water-immersed Convair.

Of the 127 souls on board, 20 demanded hospitalization, 13 sustained minimal accidents, and just one, a South Vietnamese lady, perished when she could not be extricated from the cabin. The other individuals, ironically, did not even sustain wet feet.

The vibration and veer to the right were traced to the shedding starboard nose wheel tire, the culprit for the aborted takeoff.

Only 16 days immediately after the Cathay Pacific incident, a significantly far more lethal one occurred-this time all through the landing stage.

On November 21, 1967, TWA Flight 128, a “Star Stream 880” registered N821TW, departed its Los Angeles origin two and a half several hours driving timetable because door seal problems on the at first supposed aircraft prompted its substitution by just one coming from Boston. Sure, itself, for that extremely town, with intermediate stops in Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh, it disengaged itself from California soil with seven crew customers and 72 travellers.

The flight itself was regimen. The landing was not.

30 minutes before its 21:06 approximated arrival time, it commenced its descent to Cincinnati, which, by way of the computerized terminal data service (ATIS), was reporting gentle snow, a 1,000-foot ceiling, and a 1.5-mile visibility.

The sleek, swept-wing jetliner, whose passenger home windows delivered the only gentle in the black soup via which it descended, approached the Increased Cincinnati Airport’s north-south runway. But development to lengthen it from 7,200 to 9,000 ft rendered its glideslope, technique lights, and middle marker inoperative.

Approaching from the northwest, Flight 128 handed in excess of the Ohio River, which was at a decreased elevation than the airport itself due to the fact it had been constructed on a hill on the waterway’s other aspect. Aligned with the runway, the aircraft was slated to touch down in only a moment’s time. But, 800 toes beneath its glideslope, it would never achieve the threshold.

In its place, it plowed into a Hebron, Kentucky, apple orchard owned by B. S. Wagner, clipping trees with its wings right up until the progressive impacts reduced its momentum and ripped open up its gasoline tanks. At 20:58, two miles from the runway, the purple glow from the conflagration illuminated the whirling snow, marking the crash web site.

Seventeen survivors ended up taken to St. Elizabeth’s Clinic in Covington, Kentucky, and yet another three ended up taken to Booth Medical center, all of whom have been in major ailment. Subsequent deaths of some of them left only a dozen survivors amongst the 82 aboard.

The accident, the very first Convair 880 one particular operated by a US carrier, was the worst in the Greater Cincinnati Airport’s heritage and the third in a series of related mishaps. The 1st two involved techniques by a cargo plane on November 14, 1961 and an American Airlines Boeing 727-100 4 yrs later on, on November 8.

For the reason that all had entailed runway undershoots, an investigation was initiated, but the FAA failed to uncover any method course of action mistakes or deficiencies to the north-south runway, stating that the airport “sufficiently satisfies our expectations.”

The similarity, at the very least in the two airliner incidents, was inadequate or completely nonexistent instrument monitoring during the essential closing tactic stage. In the American case, it was the failure of the crew to keep track of its altimeters during a visible strategy, even though in the TWA one the very first officer did not supply any altitude or airspeed callouts, resulting in the aircraft’s incapability to obvious method obstructions and its consequent floor impression two miles from and 15 toes down below the runway.

The 3rd fatal accident-this time to a CV-990A operated by Garuda Indonesia Airways-took area 6 months afterwards, on May 28, 1968. Plane PK-GJA, departing Jakarta the former night at 18:00, connected the Far East with Amsterdam in Europe on its multi-sector flight that intermittently took it to Singapore, Bangkok, Bombay, Karachi, Cairo, and Rome. But shortly just after takeoff from India, it dove to the ground in a vertical orientation, achieving its never-exceed pace for the duration of its earthward plunge, and impacted 20 miles absent. All 29 on board and 1 on the ground perished. Though no definitive cause was observed, sabotage was strongly suspected.

Visibility-or the absence of it-was the result in of yet another CV-990A accident two years later, on January 5, 1970. Engine failure prompted the return of aircraft EC-BNM, operated by Spantax, shortly right after tits departure from Stockholm’s Arlanda International Airport on its charter flight to Las Palmas. Despite the fact that it re-departed with no passengers with the intention of traveling to Zurich on 3 engines for repairs, major fog proved the result in of its ground plunge and impact with the surrounding forest, taking the lives of 5 of its ten crew members with it.

As experienced transpired with the Garuda CV-990A, bomb explosions introduced down two extra plane.

In the very first, on February 21, 1970, aircraft HB-ICD operated by Swissair as Flight SR 330, departed Zurich’s Kloten Intercontinental Airport with nine crew associates and 38 travellers, bound for Israel. But soon immediately after takeoff, an explosion ripped open up the aft cargo keep.

As smoke propagated by means of the cabin, the captain manufactured his mayday connect with. Granted immediate clearance to return, the Convair 990A Coronado start out to circle, pressured to make an ILS strategy simply because of a minimal ceiling and confined visibility. But destruction to the flight surfaces built it tough to command, leaving the captain to use just about every approach he could muster to continue to keep the crippled craft airborne, all to no avail.

Plowing into the village of Wuerenlingen in the Swiss canton of Aargau 25 miles from Zurich, it claimed all 47 lives.

The Preferred Entrance for the Liberation of Palestine, owning placed a bomb in a checked suitcase, afterwards claimed accountability for the explosion, which was directed at an Israeli official on the flight.

The second consecutive explosion-disabling incident transpired two many years later on, on June 15, 1972. In this circumstance, a Cathay Pacific CV-880M, registered VR-HFZ and working as Flight 700Z, was flying amongst Bangkok and Hong Kong when a time bomb, brought aboard in a piece of cabin luggage, exploded at flight stage two-9-zero, ripping the airframe into 3 sections and leaving them to torpedo to the floor, crashing 33 miles southeast of Pleiku, in the sparsely populated South Vietnamese Central Highlands, by itself 200 miles northeast of Saigon, at 14:00 area time.

So polarized was the wreckage resulting from the designed-up momentum and annihilating affect with the floor, that fire did not even erupt. United States military helicopters have been the initially to arrive at the crash web-site. All ten crew users and 71 travellers, unnecessary to say, perished.

It was believed that the purpose for the sabotage was a long-standing a single-namely, collection of insurance policies money. It was also considered that the gadget was meant to have detonated at a time when the plane would have been above the South China Sea, leaving no traces as to its trigger.

The worst Convair 880 and 990 accident took put 6 months afterwards, on December 3, 1972, when an instance of the 990A, registered EC-BZR and operated by Spantax, executed its takeoff roll from Los Rodeos Airport in Santa Cruz de Tenerife on the Canary Islands, sure for Munich with seven crew members and 148 travellers.

The plane, less than the command of Captain Daniel Nunez, rotated into blinding fog and climbed to 300 feet, at which position it skilled an uncontained motor failure. Gravity-induced earthward, it bored into the floor just one thousand feet over and above the runway, taking all lives with it.

Despite the fact that the lead to was cited as loss of regulate by the to start with officer, who was conducting the takeoff, it was discovered that it had rotated at a VR pace 20 knots decrease than that suggested for the aircraft’s gross excess weight, leaving it not able to make adequate lift to build a optimistic level-of-climb.

The past accident in this 15-calendar year period was the end result of a runway incursion. Though taxiing to the gate in Chicago at the termination of its Tampa sector as Delta Flight 954, plane N8807E crossed the lively runway and was clipped by a North Central DC-9-30, which prematurely rotated to attempt to climb over it. Whilst 15 accidents and a one fatality resulted from the DC-9’s plunge back to the runway, only 1 of the CV-880’s passenger was hurt for the duration of the ensuing evacuation. Getting had the top of its fuselage sliced off and its tail clipped, on the other hand, the Convair was weakened over and above repair.

Write-up Sources:

Lewis, W. David, and Newton, Wesley Phillips. Delta: The Background of an Airline. Athens, Ga: The College of Georgia Push, 1979.

McClement, Fred. It Will not Make any difference The place You Sit. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1969.

Proctor, Jon. Convair 880 and 990. Miami: World Transportation Press, Inc., 1996.