Icelandair - Accidents and Incidents

Accidents and Incidents

• On 29 May 1947, a Flugfélag Islands (as the airline was known at that time) Douglas C-47 Skytrain (registered TF-ISI) crashed near Hjedinsfjordur during a scheduled domestic flight from Reykjavík to Akureyri, killing the 21 passengers and four crew on board. To date, this remains the worst aviation accident in Iceland.
• On 31 January 1951, the 17 passengers and three crew members on board another C-47 (registered TF-ISG) were killed when the aircraft crashed into the sea off the Icelandic coast near Hafnarfjörður. The pilots were attempting to land the airplane at Reykjavík Airport in heavy snowfalls following a flight from Vestmannaeyjar, when radar contact was lost.
• On 14 April 1963, a Vickers Viscount (registered TF-ISU) crashed on approach of Oslo-Fornebu Airport. All 12 people on board were killed.
• On 26 September 1970, a Flugfélag Fokker F-27 Friendship (registered TF-FIL) crashed into a mountain near Vágar, Faroe Islands while approaching Vágar Airport following a scheduled passenger flight from Bergen, in what is known a controlled flight into terrain. Of the 34 people on board, seven passengers and one crew member were killed.
• On 15 November 1978,due to a fault on the ground based Instrument landing system transmitter, the Douglas DC-8 (registered TF-FLA) missed the runway upon approach of Colombo Airport in Sri Lanka during a chartered Hajj pilgrimage flight from Jeddah and crashed. 74 passengers and 5 crew members survived the accident. The disaster of Flight LL 001 (a Loftleiðir flight number, but the company had merged with Flugfélag at that time) with its 183 fatalities marks the by far worst accident in the history of Icelandic aviation.
• On 22 January 2002, the crew of Icelandair Flight 315, a Boeing 757-200 registered TF-FIO with 75 passengers on board, unintentionally entered a series of extreme manoeuvres during a go-around from a low altitude following an unstabilised approach into Oslo Airport, Gardermoen. During the incident the aircraft was subjected to load factors in excess of the design limits, culminating in a dive followed by a +3.59 g pull up manoeuvre clearing the ground by only 321 ft. The speed limit for the flap configuration was also exceeded. Control was regained and a second approach was flown with the aircraft landing safely. The airliner was permitted to proceed on its subsequent scheduled flights without a technical inspection being conducted until 13 March of that year when its manufacturer Boeing recommended further maintenance work after having evaluated the Flight Data Recorder. The Accident Investigation Board Norway, which led the investigation into the incident, made four safety recommendations, including one to the wider aviation community on operational procedures regarding discontinued approaches.