Air Canada Flight 797 - Details

Details

At 16:20 CDT (21:20 UTC) on (1983-06-02)June 2, 1983, the Air Canada aircraft registered C-FTLU took off from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport; it was to make a stop at Toronto International Airport (now Toronto Pearson International Airport) in Malton, Ontario, ultimately bound for Dorval Airport (now Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport) in Dorval, Quebec.

Donald Cameron was the captain and Claude Ouimet served as first officer. While flying over Louisville, Kentucky, an in-flight fire began in or around the rear lavatory of the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32. The pilots heard a popping sound around 18:51, during dinner service, and discovered that the lavatory's circuit breakers had tripped. It was not uncommon, however, for an airplane's lavatory circuits to pop occasionally, a problem often preceded by the common aftermath of passengers completing their in-flight meals, so Cameron waited around eight minutes to give the tripped circuits time to cool down before attempting to reactivate them at 18:59.

A strong, noxious odour coming from the rear of the plane was first reported to the cabin crew around 19:00. Flight attendant Judi Davidson traced the odour to the lavatory. She attempted to look into the lavatory but was forced back by thick grey smoke rapidly filling the small room; she then ordered the third ranking crew member to find Sergio Benetti, the chief cabin crew officer, and ask him to investigate. As Benetti sprayed the interior of the affected lavatory with a CO₂ extinguisher, Davidson reported the fire to the captain while flight attendant Laura Kayama began urging the passengers on the sparsely populated flight to come away from the front and rear of the plane and sit closer together in a compact group around the over-wing exits. At no time did any of the cabin crew mention to either Cameron or Ouimet that they had not yet seen flames, and the one person who had managed to get a good look at the scene—Benetti—had not reported seeing anything resembling the traditional causes of airline fires in pre-smoking-ban days: Flames from a trash bin fire or the paper towel dispenser, both of which were commonly set ablaze by passengers who would smoke in the lavatories on long flights. However, around 19:04, Benetti reported that he thought the fire was probably out because of how much he had doused the lavatory and that "it's gonna be easing up soon". This came less than a minute after Ouimet had attempted to investigate the fire but had been driven back by the thick smoke, causing him to strongly recommend landing the plane.

Just three minutes later, however, at 19:07, passengers began smelling smoke in the cabin again, and just two minutes after that—19:09—the "Master Breaker" alarm went off in the cockpit, and electrical systems throughout the plane began to fail, including power for the elevator trim system. This made controlling the plane's descent extremely difficult and required a great amount of physical exertion from the pilot and first officer. In addition, the PA system failed, leaving the flight attendants unable to communicate efficiently with the passengers; nevertheless, attendants were able to instruct passengers sitting in the exit rows on how to open the doors, a practice that was not standard on commercial airline flights at the time.

At 19:20, Cameron and Ouimet made an extremely difficult emergency landing at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, located in Boone County, Kentucky across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Ohio. During the evacuation, the overwing aircraft doors were opened, causing an influx of air that fueled the fire. Ouimet escaped through the co-pilot's emergency window shortly after the plane landed, but Cameron, who had expended a great deal of physical energy while trying to keep the plane under control, was unable to move due to exhaustion. Firefighters doused Cameron in firefighting foam through Ouimet's window, shocking him back to consciousness; Cameron was then able to open the pilot's emergency escape window and drop to the ground, where he was dragged to safety by Ouimet. Cameron was the last person to make it out of the plane alive. Less than 90 seconds after touchdown, the interior of the plane flashed over and ignited, killing 23 of the 41 passengers. The passengers trapped inside the plane died from smoke inhalation and burns from the flash fire. Dianne Fadley, a survivor, stated in an interview for an episode of the Canadian TV series Mayday about the incident entitled "Fire Flight" that "it was almost like anybody who got out had nothing wrong"; of the eighteen surviving passengers, three received serious injuries, thirteen received minor injuries, and two were uninjured, while none of the five crew members sustained any injuries. "You made it and you were completely fine," Fadley concluded, "or you didn't make it."

Twenty-one Canadians and two Americans died. Many of the bodies were burned beyond recognition. Almost all of the victims were in the forward half of the aircraft between the wings and the cockpit. Some bodies were in the aisles, and some bodies were still in the seats. Two victims were in the back of the aircraft, even though the passengers were moved forward after the fire had been detected; the disoriented passengers moved beyond the overwing exits and succumbed. The blood samples from the bodies revealed high levels of cyanide, fluoride, and carbon monoxide, chemicals produced by the burning plane.