Plane Crash Diaries Desmond Latham

Episode 35 - The 1986 Aeromexico collision over L.A. that changed aviation by Desmond Latham

The British government was focused on making dirigibles the transport of choice in the 1930s - competing with the Germans to produce the largest, most luxurious and most convenient way to travel across its empire. In the summer of 1930 two variants were created, one designed by a government team known ironically as "the socialist" airship as it was a labour government, the other "the capitalist" because it was the brainchild of the Vickers company.
But there were issues - It was already known that both the R100 and R101 were lacking in the enough lift originally planned at the outset of the Imperial Airship Scheme in 1925. So the engineers decided to stretch the airship and plonk in another airbag.
This was to lead to a critical failure and the R101 crash in France as you'll hear.

We’re going to look at a few examples of trigger happy pilots and missile operators, starting with the 5th April 1948 Gatow Air Disaster over Berlin as the Cold War ramped up after the Second World War.
 
A British European Airways  Vickers VC.1B Viking airliner crashed near RAF Gatow air base, after a Soviet Air Force Yakovlev Yak-3 fighter aircraft flew into it from below.
 
All ten passengers and four crew on board the Viking were killed, as was the Soviet pilot. This incident is a warning to aviators in the contemporary world, witness the tension between Chinese and Taiwan, North and South Korea, near-misses above the Baltic, and less reported but as dangerous, incidents across the middle East.
 
First, 1948.
 
The Gatow Air Disaster was a mid-air collision that sparked an international incident between the USA, Britain and Russia – leading to heightened tensions and which escalated into what we know as the Berlin Blockade. That was a rather clumsy attempt by Joseph Stalin to force Europe to back down about the Marshall plan.

So let’s take a look at some other examples of the military behaving badly.
 
On July 27, 1955, an El Al flight from Vienna Austria to Tel Aviv Israel blundered into Bulgarian airspace and was shot down by two MiG fighters.
 
All 58 people on board were killed. After initially denying involvement, Bulgaria admitted to having downed the aircraft. Despite occurring during a low point in relations between the Soviet bloc and the US and its allies, international fallout was minimal.
Moving east, on July 23, 1954, mainland China's People's Liberation Army fighters shot down a Cathay Pacific Airways CA 54 Skymaster.
 
The plane was flying from Bangkok to Hong Kong when it was hit - 10 out of the 19 passengers and crew died. In apologizing for the attack to Britain days later, the Chinese government claimed they had thought the plane was a military aircraft from Taiwan which they presumed was on an  attack mission against Hainan Island.
 
Trouble spots include the Qatar and its neighbours, Turkey, North Korea, parts of East Africa, Yemen, China and Taiwan. That's quite a list.

A listener asked me to take a closer look at the crash of a Lear jet in 1999 that was carrying golfer Payne Stewart so here we are.

Of all the crashes we’ve looked at this has to be one of the more frustrating and needs quite a bit of sleuthing. The main reason is the NTSB still has not published a final report and probably never will.

The basic facts are not in dispute – it was a case of a plane decompression at high altitude. But how it happened is another matter.

So let’s try and dig deep and discover what led to the death of one of the best known sportsmen in the United States.

The basic story goes like this.

On October 25, 1999 a Learjet 35 registration N47BA, operated by Sunjet Aviation based in Sanford, Florida departed Orlando, Florida, for Dallas, Texas, at around 0920 eastern daylight time (EDT). Radio contact with the flight was lost north of Gainesville, after air traffic control (ATC) cleared the airplane to flight level (FL) 390.

The learjet was then intercepted by several U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard aircraft as it headed in a north west direction. The military pilots flew close enough to see that the windshields of the Learjet were frosted or covered with condensation.

Later the airplane engines began spooling down, controlled flight was not possible, and the learjet stalled and spiralled to the ground, impacting an open field between the towns of Mila and Aberdeen in South Dakota just before 12h15 central daylight time on October 25th 1999.

The NTSB scrutinised the maintenance logs and found a snag reported in February 1998 that the cabin occasionally would not hold pressure at low altitudes. Maintenance checked this on the ground but could not replicate the problem, so it wasn’t fixed.

IN May 1999 Sunjet maintenance personnel were checked out as part of the Phase A1-6 inspection, which included pressurization system checks. All seemed fine once more.

But it wasn’t.

A Sunjet Aviation pilot reported to Safety Board investigators that a month later, July 22, 1999 during a flight in the very same Learjet, the pressurization system would not maintain a full pressure differential and that later the cabin altitude “started climbing well past 2,000 feet per minute” he said.

When confronted by the NTSB, the Sunjet Aviation Chief pilot denied this, saying that he hadn’t noticed any differential.

However, a July 23, 1999, Work Order discrepancy sheet 5895 noted the following: “Discrepancy: Pressurization check and operation of system.”

We’re focusing on Air Canada Flight 797 that developed and in-flight fire that turned into a conflagration after it landed and the doors were opened.
23 passengers burned to death of were asphyxiated in that terrible incident.
The response to this was crucial to global aviation safety as it led to rules such as airline manufacturers having to ensure that planes could be evacuated inside 90 seconds, visible lights on the floor, smoke detectors on all flights, firefighting training for crew and the briefing passengers sitting in exit rows.
Air Canada Flight 797 was an international passenger flight operating from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to Montréal–Dorval International Airport, with one stop at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
It took off from Dallas Forth Worth international Airport at 16h25 local time on 2 June 1983, the plane was a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32, registration C-FTLU.
There was a single scheduled stop at Toronto International Airport, en route to Montreal's Dorval Airport.
51 year-old Donald Cameron was the Captain in charge, and had 13 000 hours flight time, 4 4939 in the DC-9 and had been flying with Air Canada since March 1966.
First Officer Claude Ouimet was 34 and had flown for Air Canada since November 1973. He had 5,650 hours of flight time, including 2,499 hours in the DC-9, and had qualified as a DC-9 first officer in February 1979.

This is episode 30 and I am delighted to have special guest Jim Spaeth join us for this episode to talk about his experiences at TWA.
His life intersected with a number of accidents and he had a unique view of events he’s going to describe working as a salesman, ticketing agent and senior manager at TWA. He’s written a book called Up, Up and Astray, Memoir of an airline bachelor during the golden age of Air Travel.
Jim is a great story teller, and his eye for detail captures the background to some of the accidents I’ve already covered, particularly in the 1960s and 70s.
We start with Jim arriving in Kansas City in 1964 where he has just found out he’d got his schedule wrong in his attempt at joining the police force and he’s wondering what to do next. Little did he know what aviation had in store for him.