Paninternational Flight 112 was a

BAC One-Eleven The BAC One-Eleven (or BAC-111/BAC 1-11) was an early jet airliner produced by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Originally conceived by Hunting Aircraft as a 30-seat jet, before its merger into BAC in 1960, it was launched as an 80-se ...

operated by German airline

Paninternational Paninternational was a West German leisure airline headquartered in Munich with bases at Munich-Riem Airport and Düsseldorf Airport. History The airline was founded by Munich-based tour operator Paneuropa in 1968 as ''Panair'' and started ...

that crashed in Hamburg on 6 September 1971 while attempting to land on an

autobahn The (; German plural ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official German term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track'. ...

following the failure of both engines. The accident killed 22 passengers and crew out of 121 on board.

Aircraft

The aircraft, registered as D-ALAR, had its first flight the year before the accident.

Accident

Paninternational Flight 112 took off from

Hamburg Airport Hamburg Airport , known in German as ''Flughafen Hamburg'', is a major international airport in Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany. Since November 2016 the airport has been christened after the former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt. ...

in Hamburg, Germany, on a flight to

Málaga Airport Málaga Airport , officially Málaga–Costa del Sol Airport ( es, Aeropuerto de Málaga-Costa del Sol) since June 2011, is the fourth busiest airport in Spain after Madrid–Barajas, Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca. It is significant for Spa ...

Málaga Málaga (, ) is a municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 578,460 in 2020, it is the second-most populous city in Andalusia after Seville and the sixth most pop ...

, Spain, with 115 passengers and six crew on board. After the take-off, both engines failed and the pilots decided to make an emergency landing on a highway – ''Bundesautobahn'' 7 (also part of

European route E45 The European route E45 goes between Norway and Italy, through Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Austria. With a length of about , it is the longest north–south European route (some east–west routes are longer). The route passes throug ...

) – about from Hamburg Airport. During the landing the aircraft deflected to the left and collided with an overpass and multiple concrete pillars, causing the right wing, cockpit, and T-tail to shear off. The rest of the fuselage broke up and skidded to a halt; subsequently catching fire. The accident killed twenty-one passengers and one crew member.

Cause of the crash

Subsequent investigation showed that the tank for the water-injection engine thrust-augmentation system (used during take-off) had inadvertently been filled with

jet fuel Jet fuel or aviation turbine fuel (ATF, also abbreviated avtur) is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines. It is colorless to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for commercial a ...

instead of water. Spraying this additional jet fuel into the engines during take-off significantly increased the engine

rpm Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

and quickly caused both engines to overheat and fail, resulting in the crash.

References

{{Aviation accidents and incidents in 1971 Paninternational accidents and incidents Aviation accidents and incidents in 1971 Aviation accidents and incidents in Germany Accidents and incidents involving the BAC One-Eleven Airliner accidents and incidents caused by engine failure September 1971 events in Europe Autobahns in Germany