Stockport Air Disaster
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 C-4 Argonaut similar to accident aircraft |
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| Summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | June 4, 1967 |
| Type | Fuel starvation |
| Site | Stockport, United Kingdom |
| Fatalities | 72 |
| Injuries | 12 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Canadair C-4 Argonaut |
| Operator | British Midland Airways |
| Tail number | G-ALHG |
| Passengers | 79 |
| Crew | 5 |
| Survivors | 12 |
The Stockport Air Disaster occurred when a chartered Canadair C-4 Argonaut aircraft owned by British Midland Airways, registration G-ALHG, crashed near Stockport, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom on June 4, 1967. 72 of the 84 aboard were killed in the accident; 12 were seriously injured.
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[edit] The accident
The aircraft, which had been chartered by Arrowsmith Holidays Ltd., left Palma de Mallorca at approximately 5:00 AM, carrying holidaymakers back from the Balearic Islands to Manchester's Ringway Airport. The approach controller vectored it towards the ILS as soon as it reached the Congleton NDB, but the pilots were apparently unable to put the aircraft on the extended runway centreline and called an overshoot. As the aircraft was making a second approach to the airport, the Nos. 3 and 4 engines suddenly cut out over the city of Stockport and the No. 4 propeller began to windmill. The aircraft became uncontrollable and crashed at 9:09 AM in an open area between buildings close to Stockport's city centre.
[edit] The investigation
Investigators with the Accidents Investigation Branch of the Royal Flying Corps (the AIB) determined that the aircraft had run out of fuel because of a previously unrecognized flaw in the model's fuel system. The Argonaut is equipped with eight fuel tanks connected in pairs by selector valves. Each pair of tanks feeds one engine, but there is also a cross-feed system whereby fuel from any pair of tanks can be routed through the system if necessary. It was discovered that if the selector valves in the cross-feed system were cracked just a few degrees off the normal "off" setting, fuel could inadvertently bleed through the valves. This could cause one pair of tanks to empty completely in flight; if the cross-feed valve was set at or near "off", the engine fed by the empty tanks would stop. Moreover, although the selectors were designed to "click" when they were set correctly, the click was not discernible unless the pilot leaned forward in his seat, an impossibility given the requirement for Argonaut pilots to wear snug shoulder harnesses during flight. This tendency had been noticed by pilots of other Argonauts in the past, but neither British Midland nor the other airlines using the Argonaut (Trans-Canada Airlines and Canadian Pacific Airlines) had reported it to the manufacturer or to British Midland. Without this information, the AIB believed that it would have been extremely difficult for the pilots of G-ALHG to determine the exact nature of the emergency.
The AIB also examined the survivability of the accident. Autopsies on the passengers showed that although those in the very front of the accident had been killed by rapid deceleration injuries, those further aft had suffered massive crushing injuries to their lower legs that prevented them from escaping the burning wreckage. Investigators discovered that the bracing bars meant to keep the rows of seats separate were too weak to prevent the rows from collapsing together like a concertina, and determined that had the bars been adequately strong, most of the passengers would have been able to escape the aircraft.
Although many news reports stated at the time (and have repeated even recently) that the pilot deliberately chose to crash in an open area, the AIB found absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support this belief. The aircraft happened to be over an open area at the time the starboard engines cut out, and AIB investigators believed that the aircraft was completely uncontrollable after the loss of power. The captain, who survived, did not remember the accident sequence, and the first officer died. Moreover, the cockpit voice recorder failed to provide any evidence that the captain had chosen the crash site deliberately.
[edit] Legacy of the accident
In 2002, a memorial plaque was unveiled at the scene of the accident. It bears the legend:
IN MEMORY
OF THE
SEVENTY TWO PASSENGERS
AND CREW
WHO LOST THEIR LIVES
IN THE
STOCKPORT AIR DISASTER
4TH JUNE 1967
[edit] See also
[edit] External links and references
- BBC Inside Out North West, October 28, 2002 - contains numerous factual errors (such as the cause of the accident being "pump failure")
- Air Disaster, Vol. 4: The Propeller Era, by MacArthur Job, Aerospace Publications Pty. Ltd. (Australia), 2001 ISBN 1-875-67148-X, pp. 154-169.
- Stockport Air Disaster at the Aviation Safety Network
