Saw my first Dan Air London
(ex BOAC) Comet 4 sitting at Rimini Airport in summer of 1967.
We were on a British Eagle Britannia - I was so jealous of the 'new jet' LOL..
DA had just got their first examples ex BOAC from 1966 onwards, G-APDJ, PDK, PDN, and PDO.
It was Dan's first Jet.
Dan Air went on to obtain many more BOAC Comet 4's in 1969 and 1970.
BOAC Comet 4 G-APDL
This Comet had an incident in 1959 while on a flight from London and was approaching Ciampino Airport at Rome.
The crew experienced difficulty obtaining reliable ADF indicators. Bearings from a NDB were therefore used to assist in positioning the aircraft on its approach.
The aeroplane finally touched down but unfortunately with it’s gear retracted!
The weather was cloudy at the time. BOAC’s investigation attributed the accident to pilot error – albeit with some distraction caused by the failure to locate the ADF.
BOAC staff were assisted by de Havilland’s service and production engineers and together they succeeded in repairing the damaged aircraft in only 45 days – it was a remarkable achievement credited, in no small part, to the strength of the Comet’s airframe. The main damage was found to be to the centre section and wing stubs and, to a lesser extent, there was also damage to the fuselage. The undercarriage doors, engine cowling doors and inner flaps were all replaced.
All the engines were changed as a precautionary measure because it was not possible to examine them for shock-loading damage on-site.
G-APDL again!
After the Rome incident this BOAC Comet once more hit the ground in 1964 and survived to fly again (and yet again)
This time it struck the ground 9 miles short of Nairobi Airport whilst on approach. It made a safe landing.
The aircraft was London bound from Salisbury and was carrying 62 passengers and a crew of 7.
It initially touched down in a Game Reserve during the pitch black night approach. No one was hurt.
G-APDL was given a heavy landing check and found to be undamaged.
G-APDL was yet again involved in yet another accident on October 7 1970 this time with Dan Air, the incident being another wheels-up landing at Woolsington Airport, Newcastle
when it was being used on a crew training flight.
As the pilots brought the plane down to practice a flapless landing they forgot to conduct all of the pre-landing checks, and landed with the wheels up.
Nobody was hurt, but G-APDL was so severely damaged that it was now considered irreparable, written off, and scrapped.
Dan Air – ex BOAC Comets operated
G-APDA 6401
Spares use only by Dan Air
G-APDB 6403
G-APDC 6404
G-APDD 6405
G-APDE 6406
G-APDG 6427
G-APDJ 6429
G-APDK 6412
G-APDL 6413
W/O EGNT
G-APDM 6414
G-APDN 6415
W/O near LEGE en route EGCC-LEBL
G-APDO 6416
G-APDP 6417
DAN AIR's ex BOAC Comet operationsFaced with competition from Freddie Laker’s British United Airways who were ordering the new BAC 1-11 200 for their IT European routes, Dan-Air had to have jet transports of their own.
The first move was made in May 1966 when two ex-BOAC Comets G-APDK and G-APDO were purchased and so, for the first time, Dan-Air began to operate jet aircraft.
In 1967 Dan-Air were able, no doubt because they could now offer the Comet, to land IT charter contracts with some of the countries largest package tour operators.
In 1969 Dan-Air landed a major contract with a large German tour operator and began to service Berlin.
U.K. bases were set up at the airports where package tours were to operate from, such as Gatwick, Luton, Glasgow, Birmingham, Newcastle, and Manchester.
The Comet was designed primarily for the long to medium-haul ‘Empire routes’. It’s use on comparatively short-haul routes should have put it at a disadvantage operationally.
The package-tour scene was not what the Comet was all about, here the objective is maximum payload / maximum flights and utilization.
BOAC’s utilization had been reasonably high but with less flight cycles.
The BOAC Comets were configured to carry up to 81 passengers resulting in Dan Air Engineering making many cabin modifications to allow 99 charter passengers (later 106)
Dan-Air were not in the new aircraft market though and had not at this stage in their history, ever ordered direct from the manufacturer.
They had to buy the most economical ‘Jet’ they could – the Comet being ‘economical’ in that its purchase price was very low.
Obviously being one of the first commercial passenger jets into service meant that Comets, along with the Boeing 707 and 720 were the first of their type to appear on the second-hand market in any numbers.
As it happened Dan-Air’s need for jets coincided with BOAC phasing out the Comet, and the Corporation had been testing the market for second-hand jets when Dan-Air came along.
So once suitably modified the Dan Air Comet 4 could be made to suit the charter market well.
De Havilland (who since 1960 were now part of the Hawker Siddeley Group of companies) assisted Dan-Air in devising the necessary modifications.
The plan was to increase the standard cabin seating to accommodate 99 passengers, so this required that the cabin floor be strengthened.
(106 passenger seats were eventually fitted)
The wing structure was stiffened too to withstand the more frequent landings – based on experience gained with the short haul BEA 4B.
BOAC Comets were designed for long-haul type flights. To extend the working life it was necessary to modify the wing front spar too, the bottom booms, the rear spar top boom and the bottom skin panel in the area of the wheel well cut-out. In fact Corporation Comets were sold with the front and rear spar top modifications completed were to give up to a further 4,000 flights. These were expensive modifications making BOAC Comets better value still.
Whether expensive spar-modifications were made depended upon the number of hours already accumulated.
This became important as Dan-Air acquired more and more used aircraft.
With very high standards of maintenance and servicing BOAC’s Comets had lived a relatively easy life and were in good condition which was more than could be said for some of Dan-Air’s later Comet purchases.
An idea of the amount of work needed to be completed before the aircraft joined the DA fleet is even more interesting when one considers that some Dan Air Comets were only used for four full holiday seasons before being withdrawn from use.
The DA Comets proved well suited to their new role and Dan-Air expanded their fleet as and when they could as other carriers retired the type.
BOAC’s G-APDJ was purchased in April 1967 and G-APDN joined the fleet in October the same year.
The next phase of purchases came in early 1969 when G-APDL. PDM, and G-APDP were added to the fleet, all being ex-BOAC.
Malaysian Airways then put all five ex-BOAC Comets up for sale. G-APDA, ‘DB, ‘DC, ‘DD and ‘DE were all acquired by Dan-Air in 1969.
Fortunately these Malaysian Comets had been little modified since BOAC and only required minor work before being put into service.
One aircraft though, G-APDA was not flown again commercially and was just used for spares.
ex-BOAC G-APDG was acquired from Kuwait Airways and entered service in 1970.
Standard equipment comprised dual VHF and HF, ADF, DME, weather radar, transponder and Smiths Autopilot and flight system.
Dan-Air operated their Comets in the (then) conventional way with two pilots and a flight engineer per aircraft.
The IT market in the UK and Germany had continued to expand during the 1970s with more carriers taking a slice of the market.
This market was cut throat and very competitive with the newer IT operators equipping with more modern and less fuel thirsty aircraft – BAC 1-11 500, Trident, Boeing 727 and 737-200.
These modern aeroplanes made the Comet look dated and usually, they had lower operating costs. On the other hand, in aircraft terms, Dan-Air had got their Comets for next to nothing. A book value of Zero was offset by the cost of modification and aircraft’s higher thirst for Kerosene.
However the balance still – just – favoured the Comet.
Utilization rates continued to increase and the Comet fleet were now accumulating over 23000 hours during the year and because IT was summer seasonal it enabled the winter lay-off period to be used for maintenance.
By the late 1970s the economic balance and rising fuel prices had swung against the Comet and Dan-Air were planning their retirement.
To see how the Comet compared at this time with contemporary aircraft one has to look at its fuel efficiency compared to other IT Jets.
A Comet 4 used more fuel with 106 passengers from Gatwick to Palma than a DC-10 used with 345 passengers.
The only Comet to be lost in Dan-Air service was the ex-BOAC Comet 4 G-APDN.
The accident happened on 3rd of July 1970 when the Manchester aircraft flying for Clarksons Holidays as DA1903 bound for BCN, crashed into the Monteseny Mountains, close to Gerona, and some 34 miles NW of Barcelona, Spain.
Dan-Air announced the there were 112 people, including 7 crew, on board. There were no survivors.
The aircraft had descended to an area of high ground and struck the slopes and Beech trees of Les Agudes peak, Monteseny at a height of about 3500ft.
Initial reports were that the Comet had crashed into the sea.
G-APDN Accident report
The Comet crash was Dan-Air's first fatal accident.
News of the first major accident in the company's eighteenth year of existence came just two days after a major British tour operator Global Holidays had awarded Dan Air a four-year, £2.5-million contract for all Global charter flights from Birmingham and Newcastle with Comets, starting in April 1971.
The Spanish authorities insisted on an immediate burial of the 112 victims for supposedly public health reasons, but it has become known that Gen. Franco wanted as least as possible publicity and Press coverage of this crash, so it is thought that he made the decision for a quick mass burial in Spain, with no relatives allowed coming from the UK.
They are buried with a Memorial at the Cemetery in the village of Arbucies, 24 miles from the holiday resort of Lloret de Mar.
Locals know the crash site, a section of the range known as La Font de la Cresta.