PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Argonaut/North Star Memories and Observations
Old 5th Mar 2007, 10:23
  #46 (permalink)  
Davaar
I'll mak siccar
 
Join Date: Aug 2000
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QUOTE
As per my initial post at the top of the thread, I have a relative who worked and flew on them, so would like to think my information source is reliable.
UNQUOTE

I attended every day of the public inquiry. The captain survived but with amnesia as to the material times. There was evidence that there were more passengers on board than there were seats, and of an unqualified "flight engineer" who was seen operating overhead switches in the final moments. His experience had been limited to a short time in the RAF, in which he had worked as an officers' mess steward. At the time of the final sudden vertical or near-vertical fall, according to a graphic representation reconstructed from the black box and demonstrated at the inquiry, the aircraft was flying at less than stalling speed, but the implications of that evidence were not drawn to the attention of the inquiry. That evidence was consistent with the high incidence of compression spinal fractures among the dead. That is why the aircraft managed to impact in one of the few, perhaps the only, (and of necessity small) open spaces in the middle of an urban area without hitting buildings on a glide in. Indeed, again as I recall over the years, one of the recommendations of the inquiry report, addressing that very point, was that passengers should be seated on some sort of hammock that would distribute shock, rather than seats. That was certainly discussed. It appeared that one engine quit, and a "wrong" engine was feathered, thus putting two engines out at a critical time.
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