British Eagle - Accidents and Incidents

Accidents and Incidents

During its 20-year history the airline suffered four fatal and five non-fatal accidents.

• On 25 November 1950, an Eagle Aviation Handley Page Halifax C.8 (registration G-AIAP) operating under contract to BOAC and bound for Singapore crashed on takeoff from Calcutta Dum Dum Airport, killing two of the six crew members in the post-crash fire that destroyed the aircraft and its cargo.

• On the night of 1 May 1957, an Eagle Vickers Viking crashed at Blackbushe. It was operating a trooping flight to Libya under contract to the War Office. While returning to the airport to attempt an emergency landing two minutes after takeoff, its left wing tip struck the ground at Star Hill, 1,200 yd (1,100 m) from the runway threshold. This caused the aircraft to crash in an inverted position in a wood and catch fire. The accident killed 34 of the aircraft's 35 occupants in the post-crash fire. Accident investigators established the probable cause of the accident as the failure by the captain's to maintain his height and a safe flying speed when approaching to land on one engine after the failure the engine for undetermined reasons.
• On 9 August 1961, a Cunard Eagle Vickers 610 Viking 3B (registration: G-AHPM), named Lord Rodney and operating a non-scheduled passenger service originating at London Heathrow crashed near Stavanger, Norway on approach to the city's Sola Airport resulting in the deaths of all 39 on board (3 crew members and 34 schoolboys from The Archbishop Lanfranc School in Thornton Heath, London, plus two members of the school's staff). The Norwegian accident report concluded that the pilot was off-course for unknown reasons. The aircraft crashed on Holteheia, a steep hill, approximately 1,600 ft (490 m) high and about 8 miles (12.9 km) north of the airport at about 16.23 hours.
• On 29 February 1964, Bristol 175 Britannia 312 registration: G-AOVO operating flight EG 802/6, a scheduled service from London Heathrow to Innsbruck, hit the steep eastern flank of the Glungezer mountain at an altitude of 8,500 ft (2,600 m) while making final approach through cloud to Innsbruck Kranebitten Airport. The impact and subsequent avalanche killed all eight crew and 75 passengers on board. This was the airline's worst accident. The primary cause was the fatal decision to descend below the minimum safe altitude.
• On 20 April 1967, a British Eagle Bristol 175 Britannia 308F (registration: G-ANCG) operating a non-scheduled passenger service from London Heathrow to Kuwait made an emergency landing at RAF Manston after the flightdeck crew experienced problems locking down the aircraft's retracted undercarriage following takeoff from Heathrow. There were no fatalities among the 65 occupants (eleven crew and 54 passengers). Accident investigators established that the undercarriage's failure to lock down was caused by a loss of hydraulic fluid from both the main and emergency systems. The hydraulic lines had been broken by the incorrect retraction sequence of the port bogie, itself caused by incorrect setup of a replaced sequence valve.
• On 9 August 1968, a British Eagle Vickers Viscount 739A (registration: G-ATFN) operating a scheduled service from London Heathrow to Innsbruck crashed in West Germany on the Munich—Nuremberg highway near Langenbrück in a slightly nose-down attitude. The aircraft broke up upon impact killing all 48 occupants (four crew, 44 passengers). Accident investigators established an electrical systems failure as the accident's probable cause. This meant that during the subsequent descent vital instruments for indicating the flight attitude showed increasingly incorrect readings resulting in loss of control.