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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0094.PDF
94 FLIGHT, 15 January 1960 AIR COMMERCE . . . ACCIDENTS: 1960's UNLUCKY START WHEN analyses of UK accident statistics for 1959 are com-pleted it seems likely that the last year of the fifties may prove to have been a record safety year. By contrast, the world safety record in 1960 got off to a disheartening start. With the new year only three days old a fatal accident occurred when an Indian Airlines DC-3 flying out from Jorhat on a food-dropping mission near the Indo-Tibetan border crashed about six miles west of Taksing. It is believed that there were no survivors among the crew of eight on board. No fewer than three accidents, of varying severity, occurred on January 6. This was the day on which tragedy befell a National Airlines DC-6B on a night-coach flight from New York to Miami. It crashed near Bolivia in South Carolina with the loss of all 29 passengers and the crew of five. The aircraft had been taking over a service after the Boeing 707 scheduled for this flight was with- drawn. There was no warning of the disaster, and on the day following the accident no suggestion as to its cause, except that lifejackets were found on the bodies of several of the passengers, indicating that they at least might have been expecting the aircraft to ditch in the Atlantic only 12 miles away. On the same day a BEA Viscount at Valetta, Malta, carrying 47 passengers on a flight from London, ran off Luqa's runway after landing and buried its nose in the control tower. The pilot and copilot and one passenger were injured but the rest of the passengers and crew escaped unhurt. The third incident on this same day—it cannot fairly be classi- fied as an accident—occurred to a United Air Lines' DC-8 making an emergency landing at Buckley Field, near Denver. It was en route from San Francisco to Chicago when it developed hydraulic trouble. All eight main tyres burst on landing and it ran off the runway, but none of the 88 passengers or crew was injured. The fourth accident of the week occurred at London Airport and again a BEA Viscount was involved. As the aircraft taxied off the runway after landing the nosewheel collapsed, the front fuselage slithered along the ground and hydraulic fluid or friction started a fire in the fuselage. The 59 passengers and crew escaped without injury, but two runways were isolated by the accident until the wreckage could be examined. According to newspaper reports the Ministry of Aviation later commented that there had been "an unfortunate delay" in extinguishing the blaze; London Airport fire brigade ran out of foam as a result of difficulty in finding water hydrants in the fog which covered the airport at the time. BREVITIES Last Monday de Havilland delivered to BOAC the last of the 19Comets which the corporation has on order. All deliveries were within or ahead of the limit set by the contract. Mac.Robertson-Miller Airlines, which introduced its first Friendship into service on December 28, is contemplating the purchase of a second aircraft. BOAC have appointed Basil Bamphlyde, general manager EasternRoutes, to the board of Middle East Airlines in Beirut. Mr Bamphlyde is also a member of the board of Malayan Airways. New rates of pay offered to BEA pilots of Comet 4B services are nowunder negotiation with BALPA. The maximum rate of pay for a senior captain under the offered scale would be £4,200 a year. Anticipating a BEA request for permission to operate helicopter ser- vices between London and Amsterdam, the Dutch Government has already said that it will consider favourably any requests that may be made. TCA pilots flying DC-8s are to get an increase in salary of about30 per cent above piston-engined figures. The present salary scales on the latter types range between £3,571 and £6,071 for a captain and50 to 60 per cent of this rate for a first officer. Silver City have applied to the AT AC forapproval of a service between Leeds/Bradford and Blackpool at a fare of £2 10s return. Itwould start on April 10. Appointed Swissair general manager for the UK is M. A. Keller. He replaces W. Wyler, now general manager for Western Switzerland and a member of the airline's general management The Sperry Gyroscope Company are to supply Vickers Inc aircraft hydraulic pumps, produced under licence, for both the D.H.121 and the VC10. Orders for 72 of these FAA-approved variable delivery pumps have been received. Karachi Airport is now due to be back in full operation after threemonths' work on re-surfacing the 7,500ft runway. Work on a new runway for jet traffic is scheduled to begin in March; most jets mean-while are landing at Mauripur. Signed at Ferihegy Airport near Budapest recently was an agreement between Malev and the Air Transport Office of China for technical co-operation and joint representation. Hopes were expressed that a service would be established between China and Hungary. New branches of the Commonwealth Union of Trade (see Flight,January 8) have been opened in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam and Eagle charter flights to London have been arranged for January 28, February 11and 25, March 12 and 26 and April 11 and 26. According to H. Pearson, chief research engineer of Rolls-Royce, theinitial commercial thrust of the RB.141/3 will be 14,3401b (13,9801b guaranteed minimum) for take-off with a dry weight of 3,6501b. Forlater delivery a take-off thrust of 15,3501b (15,0001b guaranteed mini- mum) is envisaged, and future developments of the RB.141 are expectedto achieve 18,0001b. We regret to record the death of Capt O. E. (Paddy) Armstrong, whodied in Warwickshire on December 26. He was the first Aer Lingus pilot and operations manager when the company started operations inMay 1936. Previously he had served with Capt Gordon Olley. Sub- sequently he was chief pilot and manager of Morton Air Services atWhitchurch before joining Cambrian Airways as a pilot. Among the aircraft being considered by BWIA, it is reported byAviation Week, is the Convair 600 and the Boeing 720. Lufthansa's order for Boeing 72OBs is now confirmed as being for"three to five," although final details of the purchase agreement are not expected until later this month. It is reported that Lord Douglas of Kirtleside, chairman of BEA, isto visit the US this month to open a new BEA office in Los Angeles and to examine American helicopters. This month BOAC extended one of its twice-weekly Britannia servicesto Venezuela on to Bogota, Colombia. This is a 23hr journey via Bermuda, Trinidad and Caracas. The Caravelle purchased by General Electric is to be delivered tothe US on July 14. After installation of two CJ-805-23s GE will conduct installation and aerodynamic flight tests in California with what willthen be the first Caravelle 7. It is reported by Aviation Week that negotiations between United AirLines and Sud-Aviation for 25 Caravelles "hit a snag" recently when UAL asked Sud to accept some DC-6Bs and DC-7s in part exchange.The French are said to be studying the proposal. Approval has been given by the Jordan Government to a decisionby the Council of the Arab League to establish an Arab United airline. All member states of the Arab League are to contribute to the company'scapital of £17m. The 100th Boeing 707 was completed by Boeing's Transport Divisionat Renton during the first week in January, a seven-day period in which, it is estimated, the two millionth passenger was carried in a 707. Morethan 80 Boeing 707s are now in service, 14 months after the type was introduced. In 1959 nearly twice as many passengers travelled by air across theNorth Atlantic as travelled by sea, yet it was only in 1958 that parity was first reached. Rat'os of air to sea traffic over the past two years havebeen: 1958: sea 950,000, air 1,292,000; 1959: sea 884,000, air 1,650,000. During 1959 more than 4,000,000 people passed through LondonAirport—half a million more than used it in 1958. Actual figures were 4,042,600 last year compared with 3,555,000 the year before. Thenumber of aircraft movements, however, dropped from 129,500 to 127,000, a reflection of the increased unit capacity of the big jets. Another DC-8 has been ordered by Japan Air Lines, bringing the totalorder to five. Delivery of the first aircraft is expected in June. The airline say that they are planning a thrice-weekly round-the-worldjet service for 1963, for which they would require ten big jets and might enter an association with Air Union, SAS, PanAm or BOAC. Aeroflot have introduced Il-18s on the service from Moscow toBucharest and Sofia. Il-18s are also to be introduced on to the Berlin - Moscow service by East German Lufthansa from April 1960and Aeroflot Tu-114s will be introduced on to many domestic long-range routes during the spring of 1960, including Moscow to Vladivostok. Pakistan International Airlines are planning to lease from PanAmerican a Boeing 707-120 for use on its Karachi - London route. These terms are said to involve payment to PanAm of about $50,000per round trip. A thrice-weekly service would start in the spring, and Pan American would operate the aircraft until Pakistani pilots aretrained. Maintenance costs would be borne by PIA. In addition to the five F.27 Friendships ordered from Fokker byTurk Hava Yollari, the Turkish national airline have placed an order for an additional five with Fairchild, bringing their total order to ten. Allwill be powered with Rolls-Royce Dart RDa.6s and not, as speculative!)' stated in "The Airlines' Shopping List" (Flight, page 56, last week),with Dart RDa.7s. Negotiations for the purchase were concluded on December 23: the unusual nature of the order—Fokker and FairchildFriendships differ substantially in detail—is understood to be the result of favourable financial arrangements negotiated with the US and Holland
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