On 2 May 1953, BOAC Flight 783, a

de Havilland Comet The de Havilland DH.106 Comet was the world's first commercial jet airliner. Developed and manufactured by de Havilland in the United Kingdom, the Comet 1 prototype first flew in 1949. It featured an aerodynamically clean design with four ...

jetliner registered G-ALYV and operated by

British Overseas Airways Corporation British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was the British state-owned airline created in 1939 by the merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. It continued operating overseas services throughout World War II. After the pass ...

, broke up mid-air and crashed after encountering a severe

squall A squall is a sudden, sharp increase in wind speed lasting minutes, as opposed to a wind gust, which lasts for only seconds. They are usually associated with active weather, such as rain showers, thunderstorms, or heavy snow. Squalls refer to the ...

, shortly after taking off from

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

(now Kolkata), India. All 43 passengers and crew on board were killed. The crash was followed in less than a year by two more fatal accidents involving structural failure of Comet aircraft:

BOAC Flight 781 BOAC Flight 781 was a scheduled British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) passenger flight from Singapore to London. On 10 January 1954, a de Havilland Comet passenger jet operating the flight suffered an explosive decompression at altitude an ...

and

South African Airways Flight 201 South African Airways Flight 201 (SA201), a de Havilland Comet 1, took off at 18:32 UTC on 8 April 1954 from Ciampino Airport in Rome, Italy, en route to Cairo, Egypt, on the second stage of its flight from London, England to Johannesburg, Sou ...

, after which the entire fleet was grounded until extensive redesign of the type was carried out, leading to the development of the Comet 2 version.

History of the flight

Flight 783 had originated in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

and was a service to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. After a scheduled stopover at Calcutta's

Dum Dum Airport Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport is an international airport located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, serving the Kolkata Metropolitan Area and is the aviation hub for eastern and northeastern India. It is located approximatel ...

(now Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport), the aircraft departed on 2 May at 16:29

local time Local time is the time observed in a specific locality. There is no canonical definition. Originally it was mean solar time, but since the introduction of time zones it is generally the time as determined by the time zone in effect, with daylight s ...

(10:59

GMT Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being calculated from noon; as a cons ...

) on its next segment to

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

. Six minutes after takeoff, while the jet was climbing to , radio contact with

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airs ...

was lost. At around the same time, witnesses on the ground near the village of Jagalgori, around north-west of Calcutta, observed the aircraft coming down in flames. Severe rain and thunderstorms were present in the area. The wreckage of G-ALYV was later found strewn along a track, with the main parts still on fire. There were no survivors.

Victims

The 43 people on board were 6 crew members and 37 passengers of British, American, Australian, Burmese and Filipino nationalities. Among the victims were Australian politician Trevor Oldham and his wife.

Investigation

The subsequent investigation found that, after encountering a squall, the aircraft "suffered structural failure in the air which caused fire." The probable cause of the failure was reported as "overstressing which resulted from either: severe gusts encountered in the thundersquall, or overcontrolling or loss of control by the pilot when flying through the thunderstorm." The investigators also recommended "to consider if any modification to the structure of the Comet is necessary."

References

External links

Accident report
– Report by N.S. Lokur, republished in the United Kingdom by the Ministry of Civil Aviation {{DEFAULTSORT:Boac Flight 783 Accidents and incidents involving the de Havilland Comet Flight 783 Airliner accidents and incidents caused by in-flight structural failure Aviation accidents and incidents in India Aviation accidents and incidents in 1953 May 1953 events in Asia 1953 in India