South African Airways Flight 201 (SA201), a

de Havilland Comet 1 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 d ...

, took off at 18:32 UTC on 8 April 1954 from

Ciampino Airport Ciampino () is a city and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Rome, Lazio, Italy. It was a ''frazione'' of Marino until 1974, when it became a ''comune''; it obtained the city ( it, città) status (being therefore officially known as Città ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, Italy, en route to

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

, Egypt, on the second stage of its flight from

London London is the capital and 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 down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, England to

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

, South Africa. The flight crashed at around 19:07 UTC, killing all on board. The flight was operated as a charter 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 passi ...

(BOAC) using the aircraft (" Yoke Yoke"), with a South African crew of seven, and carrying fourteen passengers.

Flight and disaster

Gerry Bull and other BOAC engineers examined the aircraft for Flight 201. Previously, the same team had examined

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 ...

(a Comet that had broken up at altitude in January 1954) prior to its final flight."Comet Air Crash" ("Crash of the Comet"). '' Seconds From Disaster''. Flight 201 took off from

for

at 13:00 UTC on Wednesday 7 April 1954, on the first leg southward to

, arriving at Rome approximately two and a half hours later, at 17:35 UTC. On arrival at Rome, engineers discovered some minor faults, including a faulty fuel gauge and 30 loose bolts on the left wing, which delayed the aircraft's departure by 25 hours before ''Yoke Yoke'' was ready to depart for

on the evening of Thursday 8 April. The aircraft took off for Cairo at 18:32 UTC under the command of Captain William Mostert, and climbed rapidly toward its cruising height of . The crew reported over the Ostia beacon at 18:37 UTC, passing through the altitude of . The weather was good, but with an overcast sky. Another report was made from the aircraft, first at 18:49 UTC at

Ponza Ponza (Italian: ''isola di Ponza'' ) is the largest island of the Italian Pontine Islands archipelago, located south of Cape Circeo in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is also the name of the commune of the island, a part of the province of Latina in the ...

, where it reported climbing through and another at 18:57 UTC when it reported passing abeam of

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

. At 19:07 UTC, while still climbing, the aircraft contacted Cairo on the long range HF radio and reported an

ETA Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...

of 21:02 UTC. This was the last message heard from ''Yoke Yoke'' as some time later, the aircraft disintegrated in the night sky at around , killing everyone on board. After repeated attempts at re-gaining contact by both Cairo and Rome air traffic control were made and went unanswered, it was realised that another Comet had been lost. Initial news of the accident was leaked to the press by a German radio station which had been monitoring the radio transmissions. ''The

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' wrote that: Bull said he found it difficult to accept the fact that the circumstances surrounding the crash of BOAC flight 781 three months earlier had occurred again with the South African Airways flight.

Search and recovery

As soon as it heard of the crash, BOAC once again voluntarily grounded all of its Comets as it had done three months earlier after the BOAC Flight 781 disaster. The Italian air-sea rescue services were notified, and searching began at dawn the next day, subsequently involving the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

carrier Carrier may refer to: Entertainment * ''Carrier'' (album), a 2013 album by The Dodos * ''Carrier'' (board game), a South Pacific World War II board game * ''Carrier'' (TV series), a ten-part documentary miniseries that aired on PBS in April 20 ...

and the destroyer . Some time later that day, a report was received from a BEA

Ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...

aircraft of an oil patch some east of

and bodies and wreckage in the water southeast of

Stromboli Stromboli ( , ; scn, Struògnuli ) is an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the north coast of Sicily, containing Mount Stromboli, one of the four active volcanoes in Italy. It is one of the eight Aeolian Islands, a volcanic arc north of Sici ...

. The depth of the Mediterranean Sea at the crash site meant that a salvage mission was ruled out as impractical, but if the cause of the BOAC crash was found, it would also explain the SA crash due to the close similarities of the two.

Official investigation

At the time of the accident, the investigation into the crash of

was still in progress, but suspicion of the cause of the crash had fallen on the possibility of an

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

turbine A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced by a turbine can be used for generating e ...

failure. During the previous grounding of all Comets, modifications had been made to the aircraft, including ''Yoke Yoke'', that seemed to eliminate this possibility. After an extensive multi-year investigation chaired by

Lionel Cohen, Baron Cohen Lionel Leonard Cohen, Baron Cohen, PC (1 March 1888 – 9 May 1973), was a British barrister and judge. Early life and career Cohen was born in London, the only child of Sir Leonard Lionel Cohen, KCVO, a banker, and of Eliza Henrietta Coh ...

, the official document of findings was released by the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, on 1 February 1955, as ''Civil Aircraft Accident Report of the Court of Inquiry into the Accidents to Comet G-ALYP on 10 January 1954 and Comet G-ALYY on 8 April 1954.'' The joint investigation of this accident, and of BOAC 781, revealed manufacturer design defects (square windows) and

metal fatigue In materials science, fatigue is the initiation and propagation of cracks in a material due to cyclic loading. Once a fatigue crack has initiated, it grows a small amount with each loading cycle, typically producing striations on some parts o ...

that resulted ultimately in the

explosive decompression Uncontrolled decompression is an unplanned drop in the pressure of a sealed system, such as an aircraft cabin or hyperbaric chamber, and typically results from human error, material fatigue, engineering failure, or impact, causing a pressure vesse ...

that caused both accidents.

In popular culture

The events of Flight 201 were included in "Ripped Apart", a Season 6 (2007) episode of the Canadian TV series ''

Mayday Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice-procedure radio communications. It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency primarily by aviators and mariners, but in some countries local organiza ...

'' (called ''Air Emergency'' and ''Air Disasters'' in the U.S. and ''Air Crash Investigation'' in the UK and elsewhere around the world). This special episode examined aviation emergencies that were caused by pressurization failure or explosive decompression; the episode also featured BOAC Flight 781.

References

External links

*
1954: Comet jet crashes with 35 on board
" ''

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

'' (second column)
Comet Air Crash (BOAC Flight 781)
Seconds From Disaster, YouTube (from 27 min) {{Aviation accidents and incidents in 1954 Airliner accidents and incidents caused by in-flight structural failure Airliner accidents and incidents involving in-flight depressurization Aviation accidents and incidents in Italy Aviation accidents and incidents in 1954 Flight 201 Accidents and incidents involving the de Havilland Comet 1954 in South Africa

201 Year 201 ( CCI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Fabianus and Arrius (or, less frequently, year 954 '' Ab urbe condi ...

1954 in Italy April 1954 events in Europe 1954 disasters in Europe