Originally Posted by
rog747
Sad case of Paninternational BAC 1-11 500 D-ALAR Flight 112 that force landed after take off and crashed on the Bundesautobahn 7 highway near Hamburg Airport Germany, killing 22 of the 121 on board on September 6, 1971.The BAC 1-11 had both engines fail on take-off.
The flight was enroute from Hannover via Hamburg to Malaga Spain.
The Investigation revealed the engine's Water Injection system tanks were inadvertently filled with Jet fuel Kerosene causing an overheat and seizure of both engines.
This was due to a handling and filling error the night before at Dusseldorf of the five water canisters.
While on the ground during the stop at Hamburg, the five water canisters were offloaded from the cargo hold.
The canisters should have contained demineralized water and were used to fill the engine's water tank giving better engine performance during the takeoff.
Manfred Rhode, co-pilot of the "D-ALAR" (975 flight hours), unsuspectingly pumped the contents of all five canisters into the water system of the BAC 1-11.
The female first officer of the flight, Elisabeth Friske survived the accident. She sadly later died in a Cessna Citation accident on May 31, 1987.
99 of those on board miraculously survive the accident and the pilot and his two co-pilots survive in the torn-off cockpit.
Co-pilot Elisabeth Friske has a broken leg and is in shock. As firefighters try to free her from the cockpit, she says there's no way she'll leave the plane without the pretty sandals she had just brought back from Egypt. A fireman remonstrates with her, after which she lets herself be freed from the wreckage.
Investigation revealed that two of the five water canisters actually contained kerosene.
The canisters had been mishandled at Düsseldorf the night before and were then loaded on board the plane.
At the Investigation F/O Rhode denied not to have heard a warning from the loader Karsten Henneicke ("It stinks of fuel here") But Henneicke claims that Rhode replied: "Everything stinks of fuel here.''
I had not heard of this accident before. But in the case I mentioned in the previous post about the astute first officer discovering that his aircraft had been mis-fueled(or should I say mis-methanoled(waste fuel instead of WM), it was his specific sniff of the dipstick that saved the day(and led to a fleet grounding where two more aircraft were found with the same problem). End result, he did not have to worry about rescuing his shoes after a bunch of passengers died.
Sniff the water meth or at least see if a strong kerosene smell is emanating.
Final note about the Citation accident mentioned earlier where the copilot of the BAC 1-11 was on board(Germany's first female airline pilot). Below is the cause of the second accident.