A KLM Lockheed L-049 Constellation airliner (named ''
Nijmegen
Nijmegen (;; Spanish and it, Nimega. Nijmeegs: ''Nimwèège'' ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and tenth largest of the Netherlands as a whole, located on the Waal river close to the German border. It is about 6 ...
'' and registered PH-TEN) crashed into high ground near
Glasgow Prestwick Airport
Glasgow Prestwick Airport () is an international airport serving the west of Scotland, situated northeast of the town of Prestwick in South Ayrshire and southwest of Glasgow. It is the less busy of the two airports serving the western part of ...
, Scotland, on 20 October 1948; all 40 aboard died.
A subsequent inquiry found that the accident was likely caused by the crew's reliance on a combination of erroneous charts and incomplete weather forecasts, causing the crew to become distracted and disoriented in the inclement conditions.
The flight
Events prior to approach
The aircraft was piloted by
Koene Dirk Parmentier
Koene Dirk Parmentier (27 September 1904 – 21 October 1948) was a pilot of the Dutch national airline KLM.
Parmentier worked at Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker from 1920 to 1924. During his military service, he obtained his pilot's license i ...
, one of the winners of the
MacRobertson Air Race
The MacRobertson Trophy Air Race (also known as the London to Melbourne Air Race) took place in October 1934 as part of the Melbourne Centenary celebrations. The race was devised by the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Sir Harold Gengoult Smith, and th ...
, widely regarded as one of the great flyers of the era, and KLM's chief pilot. The co-pilot on the flight was Kevin Joseph O'Brien.
''Nijmegen'' was scheduled to fly from its home base at
Schiphol Airport
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol , known informally as Schiphol Airport ( nl, Luchthaven Schiphol, ), is the main international airport of the Netherlands. It is located southwest of Amsterdam, in the municipality of Haarlemmermeer in the province ...
near
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
at 8:00 p.m.
CET
CET or cet may refer to:
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* Cet, Albania
* Cet, standard astronomical abbreviation for the constellation Cetus
* Colchester Town railway station (National Rail code CET), in Colchester, England
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* Comcast En ...
to New York via
Prestwick
Prestwick ( gd, Preastabhaig) is a town in South Ayrshire on the west coast of Ayrshire in Scotland about southwest of Glasgow. It adjoins the larger town of Ayr to the south on the Firth of Clyde coast, the centre of which is about south, an ...
, with
Shannon Airport
Shannon Airport ( ga, Aerfort na Sionainne) is an international airport located in County Clare in the Republic of Ireland. It is adjacent to the Shannon Estuary and lies halfway between Ennis and Limerick. The airport is the third busiest ai ...
in Ireland as the alternative stopover point in case of bad weather at Prestwick. The aircraft carried sufficient fuel to divert to Shannon and then back to Schiphol, if necessary. The plane's departure was delayed as additional cargo was loaded for transport to
Iceland
Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...
, which would be an additional stop en route from Prestwick to New York.
The plane eventually left Schiphol at 9:11 p.m., crossed the English coast at
Flamborough Head
Flamborough Head () is a promontory, long on the Yorkshire coast of England, between the Filey and Bridlington bays of the North Sea. It is a chalk headland, with sheer white cliffs. The cliff top has two standing lighthouse towers, the olde ...
, eventually heading NW at 2320, when it turned almost due South approximately 15 miles ESE of Kilmarnock. The aircraft eventually started its run in towards runway 32 (Prestwick's longest runway and, at the time, its only runway that offered a
ground-controlled approach
In aviation a ground-controlled approach (GCA), is a type of service provided by air-traffic controllers whereby they guide aircraft to a safe landing, including in adverse weather conditions, based on primary radar images. Most commonly a GCA uses ...
, at 2325 at 1500'.
The
weather forecast
Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the conditions of the atmosphere for a given location and time. People have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia and formally since the 19th centu ...
Parmentier had been given by the
Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute
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at Schiphol had told him that there was some slight cloud at Prestwick, but that it would likely dissipate by the time the ''Nijmegen'' arrived.
This report was incorrect; the weather at Prestwick was steadily deteriorating,
[ with the weather at the alternative destination of Shannon even worse.][
Parmentier believed that there was a strong ]crosswind
A crosswind is any wind that has a perpendicular component to the line or direction of travel. This affects the aerodynamics of many forms of transport. Moving non-parallel to the wind's direction creates a crosswind component on the object and th ...
, blowing at right-angles to the main runway (Runway 32) at Prestwick of about 20 knots
A knot is a fastening in rope or interwoven lines.
Knot may also refer to:
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* Knot, Nancowry, a village in India
Archaeology
* Knot of Isis (tyet), symbol of welfare/life.
* Minoan snake goddess figurines#Sacral knot
Arts, entertainme ...
, which might prevent a landing
Landing is the last part of a flight, where a flying animal, aircraft, or spacecraft returns to the ground. When the flying object returns to water, the process is called alighting, although it is commonly called "landing", "touchdown" or ...
on it. Prestwick had a second, alternative, runway (Runway 26) which was heading into the wind but had no radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
-approach system. However, KLM pilot guidelines, drafted by Parmentier himself, forbade a landing at Prestwick in low cloud on the alternative runway.[
By the time of approach, Prestwick was under ]drizzle
Drizzle is a light precipitation consisting of liquid water drops smaller than those of rain – generally smaller than in diameter. Drizzle is normally produced by low stratiform clouds and stratocumulus clouds. Precipitation rates from dri ...
and a cloud-base that was almost solid at , forecast to continue from about 11:00 p.m. onwards, around the time the ''Nijmegen'' was approaching the airfield
An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publ ...
.[ As the flight had taken off late, they had not picked up the radio message ]broadcast
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...
by Prestwick airfield informing them of this.[ Parmentier was thus unaware of the deterioration in the weather: were he aware of it he would have been able to divert to Shannon. The routine weather reports broadcast from Prestwick had given a cloud cover of .] No new forecasts, which would have told Parmentier of the expected decreased ceiling were broadcast. Nor did he know that already that evening two airliners from SAS had turned back rather than attempt a landing at Prestwick.
Inland of the runway was high ground of over ,[ but the KLM-issued charts which the crew were using did not mark any land higher than .] Three miles (5 km) to the north-east of the runway, rising to over , were a set of wireless
Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...
masts. inland ran a series of electricity pylons and high-tension cables, the main national grid line for South Scotland, carrying 132,000 volts. However, the error-riddled charts issued by KLM did not have these marked and gave a spot height close by of 45'.[
]
Approach and crash
The plane made radio contact with approach control at Prestwick shortly before 11:00 p.m. At this point the cross-wind over the main runway had, unknown to Parmentier, dropped to 14 knots which made it within limits to attempt a landing on the main runway. Instead, he decided to attempt an overshoot of the main runway guided by the ground radar controller, followed by a left-hand turn that would bring the plane downwind
Windward () and leeward () are terms used to describe the direction of the wind. Windward is ''upwind'' from the point of reference, i.e. towards the direction from which the wind is coming; leeward is ''downwind'' from the point of reference ...
of the alternative runway. He would then overfly the runway before looping round for his final approach.[ While it might sound complicated, Parmentier expected to be in visual contact with the ground which would make such an attempt relatively easy.
At 11:16 p.m. Prestwick broadcast a ]morse
Morse may refer to:
People
* Morse (surname)
* Morse Goodman (1917-1993), Anglican Bishop of Calgary, Canada
* Morse Robb (1902–1992), Canadian inventor and entrepreneur
Geography Antarctica
* Cape Morse, Wilkes Land
* Mount Morse, Churchi ...
message warning of the deteriorating weather, however as the ''Nijmegen'' had now switched over to voice contact the message would not have been received. On the approach they were told of the decreased cross-wind and decided to attempt a landing on the main runway after all. However, three miles out Parmentier decided that the wind was probably too strong for landing on the main runway and decided to overshoot and land on the alternate. He overflew Runway 26, the lights of which he could now see, climbed to a height of and extended the landing gear
Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...
ready for landing. At this point they ran into what Parmentier believed was an isolated patch of cloud. However, this was the actual cloud-base, which was now as low as in some areas.[ At this point the ''Nijmegen'' was headed directly for the power cables at , which the crew believed to be substantially lower.][
Parmentier realised the 'isolated fog' he had run into was getting denser, but due to his belief that they would have visual contact with the ground the crew had not attempted to time their flight downwind of the runway.][ Before he could abort the attempt, the plane crashed into the electricity cables, hitting the main phase conductor line. The crew attempted to turn the now burning aircraft towards the runway with the intent of an emergency landing. However, the faulty charts led them to crash into high ground five miles east-north-east of the airfield] at about 23:32 UTC.[ Contemporary British reports, e.g. '']The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' newspaper (October 1948) and the Court of Investigation report (November 1949), cite the accident as occurring early on 21 October.
All 30 passengers (22 Dutch, 6 German, 1 British and 1 Irish[) and the 10 crew died. Rescue services did not reach the crash-site for over one and a half hours due to confusion over which service was responsible for responding to the crash. By the time they arrived only six people were still alive, and all died within 24 hours.]
Court of enquiry
The subsequent court of enquiry blamed several factors for the crash:
*The failure of the ground authorities to inform the ''Nijmegen'' of the deterioration in the weather.
*The failure of the crew to time their flight downwind of the runway.
*The errors in the official KLM approach chart the crew had relied on. It emerged during the enquiry that these charts had been copied from war-era United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
charts, which upon subsequent examination were also found to be faulty. The court of enquiry was astonished to find that KLM had relied on maps from a foreign authority when detailed and correct maps were available from the Ordnance Survey
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, the United Kingdom's national mapping authority.
The enquiry determined the probable cause for the accident was:
Notable fatalities
* Bert Sas
Gijsbertus Jacobus "Bert" Sas (1 August 1892–20 October 1948) was the Netherlands military attaché in Berlin at the time of the German invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940.
Sas was born in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. He was named after his f ...
, Dutch diplomat, former military attaché to Berlin who warned the Allies in October 1939 about German plans to invade France and the Low Countries.
See also
*List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft
This list of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft includes notable events that have a corresponding Wikipedia article. Entries in this list involve passenger or cargo aircraft that are operating commercially and meet this list ...
References
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Klm Constellation Air Disaster, 1948
Airliner accidents and incidents caused by weather
Aviation accidents and incidents in Scotland
History of South Ayrshire
KLM accidents and incidents
Accidents and incidents involving the Lockheed Constellation
Aviation accidents and incidents in 1948
1948 disasters in the United Kingdom
1948 in Scotland
1948 meteorology
October 1948 events in the United Kingdom
20th century in South Ayrshire