Originally Posted by
aeroflight
I guess the first engine loss incident was the 22 November 1976 loss off Das Island. I would be very interested in knowing the date of the second incident.
Yes the first was on the way to Das Island. There was also a double engine failure near Das Island (widely assumed to be fuel cross-feed mismanagement, but never proven), but I have no idea what the date of each incident was.
The second TPE331 explosion was on the way back to Seeb on a night casevac from Fahud, I think it was. I can only guess wildly about the date, but it must have been in 1977 or 1978. The pilot turned back and luckily the person responsible for dowsing all the gooseneck flares was a bit slow doing that after the aircraft had departed, so the strip was still visible. Also luckily, the nacelle fire went out just before touchdown. I would imagine that landing between burning flares with fuel sloshing everywhere would have concentrated the mind on rolling out very straight down the centre line.
A double failure also happened with an SC7at Seeb. This one - also on a night casevac - was due to fuel starvation. The routine was to refuel to 100% after the last flight of the day, and enter the tech log accordingly. On this occasion the engineer requested the bowser. and then completed the over night check. He entered the fuel uplift with the check details, but when he learned that there would be a long delay he left the entry in the tech log and wrote a note saying that the fuel was NOT loaded, leaving that where an incoming pilot or engineer would normally see it. When the casevac was called for, the duty pilot went to the airport, checked the tech log, missed the note, did a walk-round, started up, taxied out and departed. All as per SOP, apart from missing the note. (The fuel gauges were known to be unreliable and pilots relied on tech log entries and the totaliser, set in agreement with the tech log.) After about 20 minutes, I think it was, it all went quiet and the pilot executed a perfect forced landing in the valley beneath him, lit by the stars. The aircraft was later recovered undamaged. A classic example of Human Factors working together to screw things up.