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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 1088.PDF
234 FLIGHT CIVIL AVIATION . . . ARGONAUT ACCIDENT FINDINGS THE cause of the accident to B.O.A.C.'s Argonaut G-ALHE atKano on June 24, in which 32 of the 44 passengers and crew on board lost their lives, was "loss of height and air speed causedby the aircraft encountering, at approximately 250ft after take- off, an unpredictable thunderstorm cell which gave rise to asudden reversal of wind direction, heavy rain, and possible down- draught conditions." The Nigerian Court of Inquiry concludes,in its report published on July 20, that neither the captain nor the first officer (both of whom survived, and greatly assisted thecourt) nor the traffic control officers were in any way to blame. Before take-off from Kano for Tripoli, Capt. H. V. Tomlinsonhad noted that the met. forecast had mentioned scattered thunder- storms in the vicinity of Kano. At the time the sky was clear overthe airport. He was informed that there was a line of thunder- storms about 400 miles to the east, but that the storms in theKano area were purely local and had no association with any line- squall. While the engines were being started rain began to falland while taxying out it became heavy, although visibility remained fairly good. The captain looked particularly for any sign of wind-gusting and "roll-type" cloud, which are usually associated with the line-squall storm, but there were no such indications. Inorder to save time, most of the pre-take-off checks were carried out and the engines run up while taxying out. Windscreen wiperswere operating. Weather conditions were above B.O.A.C.'s minima and were: cloud three-eighths, base 2,500ft; wind 270 deg, 20 kt;visibility 1,500 yd; "moderate" rain. The take-off was perfectly normal, although visibility progres-sively decreased owing to heavy rain, which caused the captain to climb on instruments. At no time did the captain considerabandoning the take-off, having previously taken off on several occasions in weather conditions that hadappeared to be similar. The under- carriage was retracted, airspeed 100ftal*-ive the end of the runway was 125 kt, and the captain called for the firstpower-reduction. He noticed a slight up-draught over the end of the runway.After a normal climb to above 240ft he called for flaps up. No sink was noticedby the pilots when flaps were retracted; Driving with Dad: Capt. L V. Messenger and his son. First Officer P. L. Messenger, at the controls of a B.O.A.C. Stratocruiser after their first transatlantic flight together on August 2. This is the third in our "father-and-son crew" series (see April 13 and July 27 issues). although speed dropped and remained steady at 123 kt, the aircraftwas quite level and steady. This situation lasted for what seemed a few seconds—longenough for the captain to think that airspeed should be building up—when he was "horrified" to see I.A.S. dropping quickly. Heimmediately called for full power and eased the nose down slightly, but by that time airspeed was down to 103 kt (Argonaut stallingspeed: 97 kt power-on, and 104 kt power-off). The co-pilot opened throttles fully with r.p.m. still at 2,850. He did not havetime to increase r.p.m. to 3,000 because the master r.p.m. lever was not serviceable (the court found that this did not materiallyaffect the time taken to increase power). The airspeed did not increase from 103 kt, and the aircraft lost height very rapidly.When the co-pilot had fully opened the throttles and taken note of the rising manifold pressures, he looked out to see that theaircraft was nearly at tree-top height and in an almost level atti- tude. The captain, when he was satisfied that the Argonaut wasnot losing any more airspeed, looked out and saw that it was about 15-20ft above the ground with a tree directly in its path 100-200 ydahead. He was "amazed" at the rapidity with which height had been lost. He started to bank to the right, being careful that hisstarboard wing did not touch the ground, and attempted to climb; although the aircraft began to respond he was unable to preventit striking the tree. It crashed and caught fire, 2,500 yd from the end of the runway. Rescue and fire tenders reached the scene of the accident aboutten minutes after it occurred, despite having to traverse nearly a mile of soft farmland in heavy rain.The court comments that neither the captain nor the met. forecaster could have been aware that the thunderstorm cell wasforming close to the west of the airport along the take-off path, since the associated vertical cloud development was obscured bylower cloud. Kano airport was equipped with storm-warning radar capable of identifying storms some distance away but in-capable of detecting the formation of a thunderstorm cell at close range. The aircraft had, after it reached about 250ft, taken onlyabout ten seconds to lose height. , t - ; ••...•..•-• .-. • .$ METROPOLITAN ROUND-UP "CO they have decided to go turboprop" (or jet, as the case may" be) is the comment which awaits the eagerly anticipated de- cisions of so many medium-haul airlines. In Europe alone threeof the major carriers—S.A.S., Swissair and Sabena—still have not made up their minds. These three, in fact, have decided to increasetheir stocks of piston-driven airliners, and European sales of the Convair 440 Metropolitan now amount to 51. The recent S.A.S.repeat-order for the Metropolitan (increasing the fleet from 11 to 16) may have evoked mild surprise; but there is no escaping thefact that the airline needed increased capacity "but quick," even though it meant more capital spent on interim equipment. Neverthless, decisions from still uncommitted airlines to pur-chase more competitive equipment dare not be much longer delayed. For the record, Metropolitan sales now amount to 111(worth £35m to Convair), distributed as follows: (not in chrono- logical order: brackets indicate inclusive repeat orders): S.A.S.16 (5); Eastern 15 (3); Swissair 11 (3); Delta 8 (3); Finnair 2 (1); J.A.T. 1; Lufthansa 2; Air Carrier Service Corporation (fora Japanese airline) 2; Braniff 5; Continental 3; National 6; Alitalia 2; Iberia 5; R.E.A.L. 4; Sabena 12; Royal AustralianAir Force (transport version) 2; U.S.A.F. (transport version) 6; Corporate customers 9. A new production Tu-104 Silver Arrow of Aeroflot seen recently at Warsaw after a flight from Moscow. The registration num- ber shows this to be a later aircraft than any of the three which visited London Airport in March. The Tu-104 was, at the time of going to press, due to visit Copenhagen.
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