BOAC Flight 911

BOAC Boeing 707 at London Heathrow in 1964
Summary
Date	March 5, 1966
Type	In-flight breakup
Site	Mount Fuji, Japan
Passengers	113
Crew	11
Fatalities	124
Survivors	0
Aircraft type	Boeing 707-436
Operator	BOAC
Tail number	G-APFE
Flight origin	Tokyo International Airport
Destination	Kai Tak Airport

BOAC Flight 911 (Speedbird 911) was a round-the-world flight operated by British Overseas Airways Corporation. The British Overseas Airways Corporation ( BOAC) was the British state airline from 1939 until 1946 and the long-haul British state airline from 1946 WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout Events 363 - Roman Emperor Julian moves from Antioch with an army of 90000 to attack the Sassanid Empire, in a Year 1966 ( MCMLXVI) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. is the highest Mountain in Japan at.An Active volcano that last erupted in 1707–08 it straddles the boundary of Shizuoka and For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout The British Overseas Airways Corporation ( BOAC) was the British state airline from 1939 until 1946 and the long-haul British state airline from 1946 An aircraft registration is a unique Alphanumeric string that identifies an Aircraft, in similar fashion to a licence plate on an automobile located in Ōta Tokyo, Japan, is one of the two primary Airports serving the Greater Tokyo Area. Kai Tak Airport (officially Hong Kong International Airport from 1954 to closure The airport ran out of landing slots and parking bays and flights often had to be diverted The British Overseas Airways Corporation ( BOAC) was the British state airline from 1939 until 1946 and the long-haul British state airline from 1946 The Boeing 707 operating as flight 911 on March 5, 1966, was commanded by Captain Bernard Dobson, 45, from Dorset, an experienced 707 pilot who had been flying these aircraft since November 1960. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout Events 363 - Roman Emperor Julian moves from Antioch with an army of 90000 to attack the Sassanid Empire, in a Year 1966 ( MCMLXVI) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. Dorset ( (or archaically, Dorsetshire) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast

The aircraft disintegrated and crashed near Mount Fuji, Japan shortly after departure from Tokyo International Airport, at the start of the Tokyo-Hong Kong segment. is the highest Mountain in Japan at.An Active volcano that last erupted in 1707–08 it straddles the boundary of Shizuoka and For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. located in Ōta Tokyo, Japan, is one of the two primary Airports serving the Greater Tokyo Area. officially, is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan and located on the eastern side of the main island Honshū. Hong Kong ( officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a territory located on China 's south coast on the Pearl River Delta, and borders All 113 passengers and 11 crew members were killed in the disaster, including a group of 75 Americans associated with Thermo King Corporation of Minneapolis, Minnesota, on a 14-day company sponsored tour of Japan and Southeast Asia. Thermo King Corporation, based in Bloomington, Minnesota and a unit of Ingersoll Rand Company Limited is the world leader in transport temperature control systems There were 26 couples traveling together in the group, leaving a total of 63 children orphaned. An orphan (from the Greek ὀρφανός) is a child whose natural parents are absent or dead and who are not there to bring him up

Accident investigation results

The accident aircraft arrived in Tokyo at 12:40 hours on the day of the accident from Fukuoka Airport where it had diverted the previous day due to conditions on the ground in Tokyo. formerly known as Itazuke Air Base, is an international and domestic Airport in Fukuoka, Japan. The weather there had since improved behind a cold front with a steep pressure gradient bringing cool dry air from the Asian mainland on a strong west-northwest flow, with crystal clear sky conditions. A cold front defined as the leading edge of a cooler and drier mass of air In atmospheric sciences ( Meteorology, Climatology and related fields the pressure gradient (typically of air, more generally of any Fluid) During their time on the ground, the crew received a weather briefing from a company representative, and filed an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan calling for a southbound departure via the island of Izu Ōshima, then on airway JG6 to Hong Kong at flight level 310 (31,000 feet). Flight plans are documents filed by pilots or a Flight Dispatcher with the local Civil Aviation Authority (e is a Volcanic Island in the Izu Islands and administered by the Tokyo Metropolitan government Japan, lies south of Tokyo and east of the In Aviation, an airway is a designated route in the air Airways are laid out between navigation aids such as VORs NDBs and Intersections (NDB-based A Flight Level ( FL) is a standard nominal Altitude of an Aircraft, in hundreds of Feet.

At 13:42 hours the crew contacted air traffic control requesting permission to start engines, and amending their clearance request for a visual meteorological conditions (VMC) climb westbound via the Fuji-Rebel-Kushimoto waypoints, which would take them nearer to Mount Fuji, possibly to give the passengers a better view of the landmark. Air traffic control ( ATC) is a service provided by ground-based controllers who direct Aircraft on the ground and in the air In Aviation, visual meteorological conditions (or VMC) are those in which Visual flight rules (VFR Flight is permitted—that is conditions The aircraft began taxiing at 13:50 and took-off into the northwest wind at 13:58. Taxiing also refers to the sport of stealthily following an unknowning person After takeoff, the aircraft made a continuous climbing right turn over Tokyo Bay, and rolled out on a southwest heading, passing north of Odawara. is a bay in the southern Kantō region of Japan. Its old name was. is a city located in Kanagawa, Japan. The city was founded on December 20, 1940. It then turned right again toward the mountain, flying over Gotenba on a heading of approximately 298°, at an indicated airspeed of 320 to 370 knots, and an altitude of approximately 4,900 m (16,000 ft), well above the 3,776 m (12,388 ft) mountain peak. is a city located on the southeastern flank of Mt Fuji in Shizuoka, Japan. Indicated airspeed (IAS is the Airspeed read directly from the Airspeed indicator on an aircraft driven by the Pitot-static system.

Mount Fuji as seen from an airliner

While flying into the wind, approaching Mount Fuji from the downwind side, the aircraft encountered severe clear-air turbulence associated with lee waves, causing a sudden structural failure that initiated the in-flight breakup sequence. is the highest Mountain in Japan at.An Active volcano that last erupted in 1707–08 it straddles the boundary of Shizuoka and An airliner is a large Fixed-wing aircraft with the primary function of transporting paying passengers Clear air turbulence weather (CAT sometimes colloquially referred to as "air pockets" is the erratic movement of air masses in the absence of any visual cues such as clouds In Meteorology, lee waves, are atmospheric Standing waves. The most common form is mountain waves, which are atmospheric internal Gravity Structural failure refers to loss of the load -carrying capacity of a component or member within a Structure or of the structure itself At the time of the accident, winds at the summit of Mount Fuji were measured at 60 to 70 knots from the northwest. Lenticular clouds associated with lee waves were observed on weather satellite photos taken 30 minutes before the accident some 240 km (150 mi) to the south, but were not visible in the vicinity of the accident where the skies were clear. Lenticular clouds are stationary lens-shaped Clouds that form at high altitudes normally aligned at right-angles to the wind direction

A U. S. Navy A-4 Skyhawk that was sent up shortly after the accident to search for the wreckage encountered extreme turbulence in the accident area. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout The cockpit accelerometer display registered peak acceleration values of +9 and -4 g-units, causing temporary loss of control, and leading the Navy pilot to believe his aircraft would also break-up in the turbulence. g-force (also G-force, g-load) is a measurement of an object's Acceleration expressed in g s The pilot regained control and landed safely, but the aircraft was grounded for post-flight inspection by maintenance personnel. Aircraft Maintenance Technician, as used in the United States, refers to an individual who holds a Mechanic certificate issued by the Federal Aviation Administration Many other aircraft that passed near Mount Fuji that day also reported moderate to severe turbulence.

The accident was photographed by Japan Self-Defense Forces personnel at the nearby Fuji Training Base, and 8 mm film shot by one of the passengers during the flight also survived the crash. The, or JSDF, are the military forces in Japan that were established after the end of the post- World War II American occupation of Japan 8 mm film is a motion picture film format in which the filmstrip is eight Millimeters wide Witnesses on the ground reported seeing the aircraft in a flat spin trailing white "smoke" prior to breaking up in flight. In aviation a spin is an aggravated stall resulting in rotation about the center of gravity wherein the aircraft follows a downward corkscrew path The white cloud was later determined to be atomized jet fuel escaping from the fuel tanks due to the breakup. The film shot on board was developed by investigators, and showed evidence that the aircraft experienced severe turbulence just prior to the accident. No evidence was recovered from the flight data recorder, which was destroyed by fire with the rest of the nose section which fell separately. The flight data recorder ( FDR) or Black Box is a Flight recorder used to record specific Aircraft performance parameters The aircraft did not have a cockpit voice recorder, and no distress call was received from the flight. A Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR is a Flight recorder used to record the audio environment in the flightdeck of an aircraft for the purpose of investigation of accidents and incidents

The aircraft left a debris field 16 km (10 mi) long. The kilometre ( American spelling: kilometer) symbol km is a unit of Length in the Metric system, equal to one thousand A mile is a unit of Length, usually used to measure Distance, in a number of different systems including Imperial units United States Analysis of the location of wreckage allowed the accident investigators to determine that the vertical stabilizer attachment to the fuselage failed first. The vertical stabilizers, or fins, of Aircraft, Missiles or Bombs are typically found on the aft end of the Fuselage or body It left paint marks indicating that it broke off the port side horizontal stabilizer as it departed to the left and down. A tailplane, also known as horizontal stabilizer, is a small lifting surface located behind the main lifting surfaces of a Fixed-wing aircraft A short time later, the ventral fin and all four engine pylons failed due to a leftward over-stress, shortly followed by the remainder of the empennage. Empennage émpənij is an Aviation term used to describe the Tail portion of an Aircraft. The aircraft then entered a flat spin, with the forward fuselage section and the outer starboard wing breaking off shortly before impact with the ground.

Although some stress cracking was found in the vertical stabilizer bolt holes, it was determined by subsequent testing that it did not contribute to this accident. Still, it was potentially a significant safety-of-flight issue. Subsequent inspections on Boeing 707 and similar Boeing 720 aircraft as a result of this discovery did reveal this was a common problem, and corrective maintenance actions on the fleet eventually followed. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout

The probable cause determination was: "The aircraft suddenly encountered abnormally severe turbulence over Gotemba City which imposed a gust load considerably in excess of the design limit. "

Related info

This accident was one of five fatal aircraft disasters -- four commercial and one military -- in Japan in 1966, occurring less than 24 hours after Canadian Pacific Airlines Flight 402 crashed and burned upon landing at Tokyo International Airport. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. On March 4, 1966, Canadian Pacific Airlines Flight 402 (CP402 a McDonnell Douglas DC-8-43, struck the approach lights and a Seawall Flight 911 had taxied past the still smouldering wreckage of that Douglas DC-8 a short time before this accident. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout

Several booked passengers decided to cancel their tickets at the last moment in order to see a ninja demonstration. These passengers, Cubby Broccoli, Harry Saltzman, Ken Adam, Lewis Gilbert and Freddie Young, were in Japan scouting locations for the fifth James Bond film, You Only Live Twice. Albert Romolo Broccoli, CBE (Hon ( April 5 1909 &ndash June 27 1996) nicknamed "Cubby" was an American Harry Saltzman ( October 27 1915 - September 28 1994) was a theatre and Film producer best known for his mega-gamble which resulted Sir Kenneth Adam (born 5 February, 1921 as Klaus Hugo Adam) is a Production designer most famous for his set designs for the early films Lewis Gilbert CBE (born March 6, 1920) is an English Film director, producer and Screenwriter, born in Freddie Young OBE, BSC ( 9 October, 1902 - 1 December, 1998) (sometimes credited as Frederick A James Bond 007 is a Fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve Novels and two Short story You Only Live Twice (1967 is the fifth Spy film of the British James Bond series and stars Sean Connery as the ^[1][2]

References

Notes

External links

• Airliners.Net - Picture of the aircraft that carried BOAC Flight 911
• Pilotfriend.Com - Article about BOAC Flight 911
• PlaneCrashInfo.Com - BOAC Flight 911 entry
• AirDisaster.Com - BOAC Flight 911 crash photos