Convair Coronado Stranded at Birmingham?

[DeepestSouth]

This is a long shot, but can any PPruners recall, or have details of, an incident at Elmdon (that dates me?) in the mid-late 60s? My memory is a bit hazy on the details but I seem to remember that a Coronado was carrying race horses and landed OK but then found that the runway was too short to take off (sounds unlikely but that's what I recall). The eventual solution was, I think, to lighten the aircraft as much as possible, with only enough fuel to get to, I think, Luton, close the Coventry Road to traffic 'just in case' and go for it - and it made it. I think that there was quite a lot in the local papers at the time. Can anyone confirm this tale?

[chiglet]

I was at Elmdon [ATC] in 1968/69 and we had Spantax Coronados on a regular basis, and it was a very hot ship..... :ok: Never heard of that one before.

[ATNotts]

I began my "spotting" career in 1967 at BHX, but I can't recall this incident.

Actually, given that the Spantax Coronados were in PAX config, and as far as I remember did not have maindeck cargo doors, I can't see how anything other than an anorexic horse could have made it through either the front or aft doors!!

Digressing, the only livestock flights I can recall from that time were the Aer Turas DC4s, and Bristol Freighters - and a series of cattle charters flown, as I recall it, mostly on weekends, to Entebbe using Transmeridian CL44s. To a young lad new to commercial aviation the swingtail was quite a novelty!!

[WHBM]

Something slightly amiss here.

Convairs never had a freight door so bloodstock flights not possible.

Being a 4-engined jet it could have got off, empty and min fuel, from an extremely short runway if needed. The runway requirement for this would be less than for their inbound landing.

No commercial operator would arrange a flight into an airport they could not get out of again. Sounds like a bit of an urban legend. There may have been some nonsenses in the local press.

[gas path]

Not getting confused with the Pan Am 707 that got lost and landed at Northolt instead of Heathrow are you?

[411A]

Convairs never had a freight door
A few did, but they were 880's, operated by AirTrust, Singapore.
A 990 was planned, but I don't believe it was converted.

[BelArgUSA]

Well, one thing to remember...
PanAm motto was "The Most Experienced Airline in the World"...
Still have an old framed poster that says so.
Northolt was just another of the many "experiences"...!
xxx
:{
Happy contrails

[KeMac]

I have a copy (somewhere) of an Aircraft Illustrated from 1968 or 1969 with an article about Elmdon. There is a picture of a Spantax CV 990 taking off and it certainly didn't look if it had any problems with the runway length.

[pilotms]

There was an Incident was Spantax like you discribed at Hamburg in Germany.
Instead of Landing at Fuhlsbüttel, they landed at Finkenwerder.
As far as I remember, they had to remove the Gallies, Toilets, etc. just to ferry the plane over to Fuhlsbüttel.

[jabberwok]

Just to prove Coronado's flew out of Brum..

http://www.homepages.mcb.net/bones/WebAircraft/EC-BNM.jpg

Poor image but it was taken from some distance away on a Leica IIIc. Date was about August 1968. Like Chiglet I was in ATC at the time and recall no problems with the CV990 apart from the smoke and that they sometimes threw away an approach at quite high limits.

[dixi188]

As for CV990s and short runways, I twice saw them take off from runway 17 (4800ft. IIRC) at Bournemouth (Hurn) when strong southerly winds were blowing.

[DeepestSouth]

Thanks all, for your responses. Clearly, the old memory is worse than I thought. I'll just put it down as another urban myth.

[Hyperborean]

Convairs at Bournemouth! I remember a class at the College of Knowledge having to stop for what seemed like minutes due to the noise. 111's going round on one were nearly as good/bad. They don't make 'em like that any more.

[NutLoose]

Suprised they offloaded the horses, after all, a little more Horsepower would be a good thing :p