1960 Viscount weather incident uncontrolled descent from 19,000 ft

[Centaurus]

On 3 January 1960 an Ansett-ANA Vickers Viscount registration VH-BAT was cruising over Mildura enroute Adelaide to Sydney. The aircraft encountered a downdraft of extraordinary magnitude at 19,000 ft such that the aircraft entered an uncommanded and uncontrolled descent to 7000 ft when control of the aircraft was finally regained.

During the rapid descent the captain stated that the altimeter needle went round so fast that it was a blur and the artificial horizon bar was jammed against the stop.
Although the aircraft was believed to have been inverted for a proportion of the descent, it is not known if any damage to the airframe structure occurred or if any of the cabin crew or passengers were injured

The aircraft made a safe landing with Captain K. Brown and F/O R. McDonald commended for their action in saving the aircraft and all those on board.
An official investigation report on the incident has not yet been found.

A downdraught of such magnitude is frightening. The flight safety ramifications alarming. Does anyone remember that incident or have details of the DCA investigation? .

[Petropavlovsk]

Interesting.

Butler Air Transport registration (VH-BAT) did Butler fold and taken by Ansett?

[B772]

No info on the incident Centaurus.

Registration changed from VH-BUT to VH-RMP in Aug 1962.
WX Radar was not fitted to this a/c until Jan 1963.
After a major crack in a wing spar was discovered during routine maintenance in Sep 1967 the a/c was withdrawn from service and eventually scrapped.

[tail wheel]

Butler was taken over by Ansett in September 1958. VH-BAT was reregistered VH-RMO in May 1963. Scrapped at Melbourne July 1976.

B772. Thread related to VH-BAT, not VH-BUT. VH-BUT had the major structural crack in the wing and was permanently grounded September 1967.

Interestingly VH-BAT/VH-RMO had another interesting incident on 11 December 1967:Damaged on landing at Essendon Airport, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Department of Civil Aviation - Air Safety Incident Report by K Eddy: -

At approximately 05:30 hours Ansett-ANA Captain L Mellor contacted the airport authorities and requested a visual check of the East-West runway for signs of propeller strike markings as there were approximately two inches of metal missing from the tips of the No.4 propeller.

This was discovered by the ground crew as soon as the aircraft arrived at the stand and they notified Captain Heinrich Theodor Hasselo, as he left the aircraft.

A check of runway 26 was carried out and nine blade slashes were found commencing at the 4,600 foot mark from the runway threshold.

Viscount c/n 97 operational record (http://www.vickersviscount.net/Index/VickersViscount097History.aspx)

[RodH]

In 1964 I was an F/O on the V720 & V832 models and hated every minute of it.
Whilst it was way ahead of it's time it did not have a very good safety record at all and being a single spar did not help the feeling of dread when flying it.
It was not all all comforting nor nice to fly in it , was always apprehensive.
The happiest day of my aviation career was leaving the Viscount to fly the B727.

[kangaroota]

A question for RodH
On the HS748 we got the props synchronized as best we could, about 14200 rpm IIRC and then turned on the auto synchronizer.
Sometimes fiddly enough with just two engines.
How did you go with four. Did you have auto sync?

[Turnleft080]

In 1964 I was an F/O on the V720 & V832 models and hated every minute of it.
Whilst it was way ahead of it's time it did not have a very good safety record at all and being a single spar did not help the feeling of dread when flying it.
It was not all all comforting nor nice to fly in it , was always apprehensive.
The happiest day of my aviation career was leaving the Viscount to fly the B727.

RodH as a real small kid my dad and I watched aircraft from the observation deck at Essendon. May have seen you start up those darts
or JT8Ds and do a full lock tiller turn to get that wiff of kero. Your generation inspired me as with the black & white adds, Up up and away with TAA
and Ansett's Leonardo Da Vinci/marvel swan T/O.
How ironic last night watched The Beatles in Oz -Live remastered and the first 5min shows them landing in VH-RMK, disembarking, traveling around the
airport in a flat bed truck.

[boaccomet4]

Sometime in the 1990's I was invited by a friend who was part of the Aviation investigation team to visit the ATSB offices in Canberra. At the time they were discarding a boxes of the old air safety digests, pretty much anything in hard copy from both Australia and overseas. At the time I was interested in the BEA Trident Accident at on takeoff from Heathrow in 1972 and managed to get a hard copy of the report. My understanding is that incident and accident reports may have been transferred to microfilm and stored. As a boy I flew in Viscounts extensively and it sure was better from a passenger point of view than the old piston engine aircraft like the DC-3/DC 4. Sure did think the Ansett-ANA Vicounts with the Candy Stripe colour scheme looked hot. However every pilot with whom I have spoken to who operated the aircraft complained about the cockpit layout.
Interesting how the incident mentioned happened the year before VH-TVC was lost in a severe thunderstorm after take-off in Sydney.
Am surprised the incident mentioned in this discussion did not involve major structural failure.
I wonder how many seat covers required a change upon arrival!!

[Mach E Avelli]

A question for RodH
On the HS748 we got the props synchronized as best we could, about 14200 rpm IIRC and then turned on the auto synchronizer.
Sometimes fiddly enough with just two engines.
How did you go with four. Did you have auto sync?

No auto sync but three syncroscopes slaved to one engine (can't remember which). Getting the little whizzing wheels to stay still was something to while away the hours. Your memory of 14200 rpm is spot on. The Viscounts I flew in the UK had been re-sparred, which gave some confidence. I rather liked it.

[RodH]

For those interested you can view all of the Aviation Safety Digests at: https://collections.heritageoftheair.org.au/items/browse

Regards.
Rod H

[RodH]

boaccomet4
It was caused by major structural damage.

https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19611130-1 (https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19611130-1)

PROBABLE CAUSE: "The cause of the accident was the failure in flight of the starboard outer wing in upward bending due to tensile overloading of the lower spar boom at station 323, probably induced by a combination of manoeuvre and gust loading when the speed of the aircraft was in excess of 260kts.

[Australopithecus]

As little kids my brother and I thought ourselves quite the swells to be treated to a Viscount flight. I recall liking the oval windows and the plush seats and the flat floor, unlike the DC-3s of earlier flights. I think that the sort of horizontal stabiliser prompted me to ask about dihedral which led to other questions which led to...you know where. Friggin Viscounts.

[The Banjo]

boaccomet4
It was caused by major structural damage.

https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19611130-1 (https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19611130-1)

PROBABLE CAUSE: "The cause of the accident was the failure in flight of the starboard outer wing in upward bending due to tensile overloading of the lower spar boom at station 323, probably induced by a combination of manoeuvre and gust loading when the speed of the aircraft was in excess of 260kts.

From your link:

445 built
37th loss
20th fatal accident
11th worst accident (at the time)

It would appear the Comet was not the only problem child in the British hanger.

[krismiler]

I had a few pax flights in Viscounts as a youngster, including flight deck visits which were allowed in those days. The most significant memory is the noise and the next is the turbulence. Pistons fly below the weather, jets fly above it and turboprops fly in it.

Australia may have been unlucky with its experience of Viscounts, the type was operated in Africa into the 1980s and by the standards of the time seemed to do okay.

Nearly all Viscount Pilots would be either retired or not too far off by now. An aircraft like this soon sorts out children of the magenta line from real aviators.

[BendyFlyer]

Centaurus the VH-BAT incident is interesting. The only place to go for more info would be the National Archives or TROVE may have more. I have been looking at Butler's history and how it got taken over by Ansett but this sort of day to day operational stuff does not appear in the various books on Butler Air Transport. The problem is these sort of reports (225s) were handled by ASIB in the old DCA and when it became DOT it was renamed as BASI (1982) then later into the ATSB. Whether they would archive this sort of stuff is problematic the stats about stuff, yes, major accident reports, yes but day to day minutae hardly likely. The best place would actually be the aircraft file for VH-BAT that would have been created by DCA and carried forward over the years. Having delved deeply in the past through CAA, CASA etc records and files best I can say is they were an abominable mess with no logical structure or filing system structure, might be on a day file as they called them from that period with DCA but that would be a trip to the National Archives and probably a week of intensive reading. Interesting that it does not mention if they were in IMC, too low for a jet stream or CAT probably flew into the terminal stage of a CB where they are collapsing - easy to do without WX RDR.

One thing that did spring out reading on this era of flight was of the technical stuff aboutl these first generation British Airliners, Vickers and De havilland is the issue of the quality of the aluminium they used, it appears most of these early British aircraft were constructed of aluminium alloy that was essentially recycled aluminium scrap from various sources, the alloys were 'softer' than American hard aluminium alloys but met the standard of the day, It helps explain why they had so many 'fatigue' or wear and tear issues in the airframes (wings, epennage and engine mounts) Vickers and De havilland both and why the only answer came later with new spars etc from harder alloys. The designs were not really at fault but then again like all these things hindsight (accidents and failures) led to design and manufacturing changes we tend to forget these aircraft were really at the time 'çutting edge' technology.

Never had a ride in the Viscount but looking at the type gives the impression of a typical British dogs breakfast approach to cockpit ergonomics. The pilot accounts of the type confirms the comments above cramped and messy with stuff all over each one different from the next you take a look at the cockpit photos and it makes you think!. Funnily enough they had very high passenger appeal and were well liked by the travelling public who thought they were great and the kept them going for quite a long time really. The major issue was not the darts but the airframe maintenance demands were very expensive to keep up as they aged, soft metal bending and cracking!

Here is a shot of VH-BUT from the WWW:

https://i.imgur.com/Oni2qdM.jpg

[boaccomet4]

RodH and Banjo
Great to hear from you legends who actually got to fly Viscounts.
Thank you for your references to the appropriate links. When at the ATSB office in Canberra thy actually produced the DCA folder containing the findings and the photos taken during the investigation of VH-TVC which broke up over Botany Bay in 1961. When one goes for a search on the internet you get directed to other links (Copies of Air Safety Digests produced by DCA and links as you have mentioned). I have studied the loss and incidents involving Viscounts operated in Australia extensively. The frustration with the ATSB site is that although there are summaries of incidents in the old copies of the wonderful Bureau of Air Safety/DCA digests access to the actual accident/incident reports are scant. Getting back to the incident related to in this discussion could it be that as the aircraft and occupants survived that the DCA placed less resources to it and regarded it as an encounter clear air turbulence. Could it be tht Reg Ansett may have done all he could to avoid any media involvement/coverage of the incident and that it was dealt with discreetly between Ansett and the DCA.
Another source of information may be to contact The TAA Museum team in Melbourne as there are both pilots and LAME's who were involved in operating and maintaining the type and may be able to shed some light on the incident.

[deja vu]

I had a few pax flights in Viscounts as a youngster, including flight deck visits which were allowed in those days. The most significant memory is the noise and the next is the turbulence. Pistons fly below the weather, jets fly above it and turboprops fly in it.

Australia may have been unlucky with its experience of Viscounts, the type was operated in Africa into the 1980s and by the standards of the time seemed to do okay.

Nearly all Viscount Pilots would be either retired or not too far off by now. An aircraft like this soon sorts out children of the magenta line from real aviators.
My lasting memory of the Viscount was Barley Sugar and crying children thanks to a dodgy pressurisation system or the pilot operating it. Not only were the pilots men of steel, so were the pax all dressed in their finery, no inflight entertainment then, just charming flight attendants to help pass the time. Flying then was amazing.

[Propstop]

Viscount pressurisation was by three Rootes blowers for the pressure and an air to air heat exchanger in the number three exhaust. Why would anyone heat cabin air in an exhaust still beats me, bug smashers use a shroud around the muffler and Janitrols!!, will say no more
Viscounts had a particular smell in them as did most Pommy aircraft. A mixture of oil, fuel, exhaust amongst other things and vomit. I remember the little bottles of Nil Odor when the contents were liberally sprinkled around.
i was fortunate to be a passenger on nearly all of TAA Viscounts and many a ride in the jump seat. Captain Ivan Neale comes to mind.
As an apprentice I worked on them in dock and line maintenance and I can say they were not designed to be easily maintained.

[krismiler]

One of those blowers caused an inflight breakup on 22 September 1966 when it failed and caused a fire which led to the port wing separating

[emeritus]

I had 3 1/2 years flying Viscounts. All 3 types, V720c, V747 and V832. Joined Ansett in 63 and after 2 weeks flying the DC3 my intake course was back into ground school to convert to the Viscount. The cockpit was an ergonomic disaster and the a/c had the highest workload for a F/O.

Viscount F/O's were experts in manual pressurisation control due mainly to Outflow Valves gummed up with nicotine and door seals that used to let go at low cabin differential resulting in decompression around 3-5000ft . The three types had different cockpit layouts and the V747's RMO/RMP had all switches going in the opposite direction to the others ! Very early on you realised that if you had nothing to do you probably had forgotten something.....fuel trims/temps,cabin temp, radio aids, position reports, prop sync, your coffee . I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I then went on to the DC9.

The systems in the F27 were almost identical but thankfully worked a lot better.

Emeritus

[Centaurus]

I contacted ATSB today to ask if there was any record of the VH-BAT dive incident. The lady was most helpful and said as the incident was in 1960 any record would be held at the National Archives. I have submitted the request for information to the NA.

Having flown Viscounts in the RAAF in 1965 I was curious at what would have caused such an unusual manoeuvre in the first place. Perhaps over-controlling during recovery from an unusual attitude? Easy to happen. There were no Viscount full flight simulators in those days so no opportunity to practice realistic unusual attitudes. Was it a CB encounter gone wrong? Wake turbulence? Tornado in certain types of cloud formation? The quoted report from the Viscount history website was written up by someone who had interviewed both pilots.

Re the Ansett Viscount that broke up in mid-air over Botany Bay in November 1961.

By coincidence I talked to a friend of mine today who was a young commercial pilot on duty at the company operations office at the airport on the day of the accident. He said there was a very severe storm with heavy rain over the airport an hour before the departure. He was talking to the pilots of the Viscount during flight planning and were all looking out of the window at the thunder and lightning low cloud and blinding rain. After a while the captain said something like "Well we may as well give it a go" and walked out of the office. That was the last he saw of them. Parts of the aircraft were later found on the actual aerodrome indicating it had broken up almost over the 'drome even though major parts fell into Botany Bay.
At the subsequent Board of Inquiry evidence was presented that at the time of departure of VH-TVC there was a flash of lightning and loud thunder which prompted a remark by someone in the Tower to the effect that it sounded as if an aircraft had blown up.

Makes you wonder in hindsight why the captain chose to depart in such severe weather knowing the aircraft was not fitted with weather radar.
Two of the points made in the summary by the Board of Inquiry into the accident were:
26) At the time of the failure of the starboard outer wing the aircraft was travelling at a speed in excess of 260 knots and at an appreciably higher speed when it struck the water.

(27) It is probable that action by the pilot to recover control of the aircraft during its rapid descent imposed a manoeuvre load on the aircraft which together with its speed and turbulence encountered, produced forces in the aircraft structure greater than it was designed to bear and which failed the starboard outer wing.

Remarkable similarity to the Braniff BAC One Eleven mid-air break-up in clear air between two huge storm cells over Nebraska USA. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braniff_Flight_250

Talked to a Met officer about the Viscount break up over Sydney and he said certain types of super storms can generate violent vortices inside these clouds or in the clear air between them and these clouds have been known to exist in Australia.

[boaccomet4]

Oh boy you guys are bringing back lots of memories. Can remember the air hostesses walking down the aisle with a basket of barley sugar prior to takeoff and prior to descent. The melamine catering catering dishes with a hot roast in them and meal trays with little slots for for all the items on ones meal tray. As far as the airframe is concerned and the heavy maintenance required to keep the aircraft airworthy suggest you checkout a book titled "Contested Skies."
Despite the operating and maintenance issues TAA and Ansett-AnA achieved high load factors of around 80 percent from introduction of the aircraft and it was initially well patronised before introduction of the B727 and DC9. As a boy I kept a log of the registration and aircraft type that I flew on as passenger and flew on all types of Viscounts 700/800/832 series that were operated by Ansett and TAA. Another issue is that the aircraft was designed such that it had a limited lifespan based on operating cycles etc. due to the nature and limits of the alloys from which it was constructed. My understanding is that the Sud-Aviation Caravelle had a limited lifespan aswell. Besides the Avro 146 the Viscount achieved a high volume of sales compared to any other gas turbine aircraft produced in the UK.

[kangaroota]

Can someone give a brief description of the basic differences in the 700 / 800 / 832 series?

[Sunfish]

Krismiler: One of those blowers caused an inflight breakup on 22 September 1966 when it failed and caused a fire which led to the port wing separating.

‘’That was Ansett - ANA flight 149.

In my days at Ansett this was still spoken about in lowered tones. There were two problems with the design. The main one being the “pancake” accessory gearbox was the wrong side of the firewall. From memory it mounted the dunlop aviation roots blower, a generator for aircraft power and an alternator for electric deicing power.

The second one (as I was told, but I don’t think was mentioned as the cause) was that the stack of thrust washers on the blower shafts were out of order - the order in the manual was ambiguous and not being designed to make assembly foolproof, and the resultant failure cascaded. A young Roy Perry was superintendent of component overhaul in my day and I was told his father had been superintendent at the time of the accident. I was told that his hair went white over the next few months from the strain and awful conclusion about the cause.

[jonkster]

Makes you wonder in hindsight why the captain chose to depart in such severe weather knowing the aircraft was not fitted with weather radar.
Two of the points made in the summary by the Board of Inquiry into the accident were:
26) At the time of the failure of the starboard outer wing the aircraft was travelling at a speed in excess of 260 knots and at an appreciably higher speed when it struck the water.

(27) It is probable that action by the pilot to recover control of the aircraft during its rapid descent imposed a manoeuvre load on the aircraft which together with its speed and turbulence encountered, produced forces in the aircraft structure greater than it was designed to bear and which failed the starboard outer wing.

Very coincidently I picked up a copy of the ATSB Flight Safety magazine from 2012? a few days ago and read Macaurthur Job's account of that accident.

Part of his discussion was how that accident resulted in weather radar becoming required on turbine aircraft in Australia.


EDIT - found it! https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20130530023657/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/140978/20130530-1146/fnov11.pdf

the article is "The Final Piece of the Puzzle" page 58

[boaccomet4]

Kangaroota - suggest you google VickersViscount.net for info on the differences between the 700 and 800 series. As a boy travelling on the aircraft type frequently i noticed that the 700 series had oval shaped doors and the 800 series had rectangular doors. Other than that the models differed in fuselage length, improvements in the power delivered by the Rolls Royce darts and seating capacity. The Ansett V832 had the largest seating capacity.

[ULH Extreme]

I flew Viscounts in Oman in the 70s, thought it was a great old lady. We operated around 15,000ft max with the ME temps and only saw higher on the odd trip to Europe. OZ can be very warm in Jan, was he too high at 19,000 and just lost it with the downdraft and turbulence ?
ULH