On 5 January 1970, a

Convair 990 Coronado The Convair 990 Coronado is an American narrow-body four-engined jet airliner produced between 1961 and 1963 by the Convair division of American company General Dynamics. It was a stretched version of its earlier Convair 880 produced in respon ...

operated by the Spanish airline

Spantax Spantax S.A. was a Spanish leisure airline headquartered in Madrid that operated from 6 October 1959 to 29 March 1988. Spantax was one of the first Spanish airlines to operate tourist charter flights between European and North American cities and ...

crashed shortly after take-off from

Stockholm Arlanda Airport Stockholm Arlanda Airport is an international airport located in the Sigtuna Municipality of Sweden, near the town of Märsta, north of Stockholm and nearly south-east of Uppsala. The airport is located within Stockholm County and the prov ...

, killing five of the ten people on board.

Background

The aircraft was earlier that evening about to fly to

Mallorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean. The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Bal ...

with Swedish travelers, but at take-off the number 4 engine developed a fault. The take-off was aborted and the aircraft returned to the gate and the passengers were allowed to leave the aircraft. Later in the evening it was decided to perform a three-engine ferry flight to

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

for an engine-change. On board were three crew members and seven passengers. There was a strong wind and -27 °C at the airport.

Accident

At 22:24 hours the aircraft started its take-off roll on runway 19. During the take-off roll, the nose yawed to the right. This was corrected by retarding number 1 engine power from 85% to 80-60%. The aircraft rotated at 134 knots with 27 degrees flaps. While climbing, the aircraft banked 4-6 degrees to the right and the airspeed suddenly dropped to 10 knots below V2 (145 knots). The aircraft contacted some treetops, banked 10-15 degrees and crashed 1,800 meters from the point of lift-off. The plane ploughed a long road in the woods and broke into several pieces. The cockpit was separated from the rest of the fuselage and was wedged between tree trunks and hard frozen ground and tilted 45 degrees to the left. First officer Miguel Granado was sitting to the right and became trapped when the seat pushed forward and both legs were caught up under the instrument panel. His right lower leg was broken and angled. His left foot was tightly pinched as well as his left

calf Calf most often refers to: * Calf (animal), the young of domestic cattle. * Calf (leg), in humans (and other primates), the back portion of the lower leg Calf or calves may also refer to: Biology and animal byproducts * Veal, meat from calves * ...

and

achilles tendon The Achilles tendon or heel cord, also known as the calcaneal tendon, is a tendon at the back of the lower leg, and is the thickest in the human body. It serves to attach the plantaris, gastrocnemius (calf) and soleus muscles to the calcaneus (h ...

. Askew under the pilot was one of the aircraft maintenance engineers, trapped with multiple rib fractures. Granado held, without gloves, his hands on one of the fuselage pipes and tried to keep himself up and thereby relieve pressure on his friend's chest. Both hands received severe frostbite. The

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

escaped with minor contusions and was able to break free and get out. Aware of the risk of being motionless at these low temperatures, he walked around and tried to keep the body heat up and thereby escaped with minor frostbite on the hands and feet. They searched in the prevailing darkness and powder snow for the

Emergency Locator Transmitter An Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) is a type of emergency locator beacon for commercial and recreational boats, a portable, battery-powered radio transmitter used in emergencies to locate boaters in distress and in need of i ...

and could, after it was found, call for help. What the crew did not know was that there was a house where a family, asleep and oblivious to the accident, only a hundred meters from the crash site. The family later woke up when a police helicopter flew low over their house.

Emergency response

Four hours after the accident the emergency response located the plane. First officer Granado who was trapped, had to wait over eight hours in the bitter cold before he was free. At the time of the accident, disaster preparedness at Arlanda was minimal. An ambulance was stationed at

Löwenströmska lasarettet Löwenströmska lasarettet is a locality situated in Upplands Väsby Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden, with a population of 518 in 2010. It takes its name from a hospital that was founded by the brother of Jacob Johan Anckarström, the murd ...

Upplands Väsby Upplands Väsby () is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality and the seat of Upplands Väsby Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden with 149,463 inhabitants in 2020. History The municipality has a long history with clear traces of settlements from t ...

10 km south, but had no radio installed. Staff were sent out in white robes, and

clog Clogs are a type of footwear made in part or completely from wood. Used in many parts of the world, their forms can vary by culture, but often remained unchanged for centuries within a culture. Traditional clogs remain in use as protective f ...

s on their feet to help the survivors. Five people, including a Swedish flight attendant, died in the cold weather.

Investigation

The

Swedish Accident Investigation Authority The Swedish Accident Investigation Authority ( sv, Statens haverikommission, or SHK, in English formerly the Swedish Accident Investigation Board) is a Swedish government agency tasked with investigating all types of serious civil or military acci ...

summarized the interacting factors of the accident: *Unexpected early loss of external visual reference after take-off. *Loss of directional control during transition from

visual The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight (the ...

to instrument flying. The yaw created increased drag and yaw induced roll. *The presence of a temperature inversion, which resulted in a down draught and speed loss. *Presence of

wind shear Wind shear (or windshear), sometimes referred to as wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and/or direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere. Atmospheric wind shear is normally described as either vertical or horizontal ...

, which caused additional speed loss. The group within the Swedish Accident Investigation Authority that investigated the emergency response pointed out certain deficiencies in the search and rescue systems, which later resulted in a reorganization.

Aftermath

The Spantax accident was one of the events that caused the Swedish health care to develop both the disaster medical preparedness and equipment. They also began to set up emergency plans.

References

External links

Aviation accident report
{{Aviation accidents and incidents in 1970 1970 in Sweden Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error Aviation accidents and incidents in 1970 Accidents and incidents involving the Convair 990 Coronado Aviation accidents and incidents in Sweden Spantax accidents and incidents Stockholm County January 1970 events in Europe