2 May 1952 First Commercial Flight of the De Havilland Comet.

[S'land]

At 15.12 (local time) BOAC’s DH Comet, G-ALYP, took off from London for Johannesburg. She carried 36 passengers, all of whom paid GBP 175 one way, or GBP 315 return.

The flight took approximately 24 hours, about four hours less than with the propeller driven aircraft then in regular use.

During the flight there were two crew replacements, one in Beirut and the other in Khartoum.

With all of the problems that the Comet had (the first accident happened only five months later in Rome) she did inaugurate the passenger jet age and was, to my mind, the most beautiful passenger jet built to date.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubQXG7qSwDs

[forget]

The Rome/Elba accident was the third. No?

3 March 1953 Canadian Pacific Airlines de Havilland DH-106 Comet 11:11
Karachi, Pakistan CF-CUN

5 February1953. BOAC. de Havilland DH-106 Comet 43:43
Jalalogori, India G-ALYV

1 October 1954. BOAC. de Havilland DH-106 Comet 35:35
Elba, Italy G-ALYP

[S'land]

The incident on the island of Elba in Italy was indeed the third fatal incident. However, on 26 October 1952 a BOAC flight at Rome Ciampino airport failed to get airborne. A number of passengers sustained minor injuries.