Mohawk Airlines Flight 40 was a scheduled passenger flight between

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, Yonkers, and Rochester. At the 2020 census, the city' ...

and

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morg ...

, with an intermediate stop in

Elmira, New York Elmira () is a city and the county seat of Chemung County, New York, United States. It is the principal city of the Elmira, New York, metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses Chemung County. The population was 26,523 at the 2020 censu ...

. On June 23, 1967 it suffered a loss of control and crashed, killing all 30 passengers and four crew on board. It was the deadliest disaster in the airline's history. A valve in the auxiliary power unit had suffered a complete failure, spreading fire to the tailplane, causing a loss of pitch control.

Aircraft and crew

This particular

BAC 1-11 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 ...

was new, having had its first flight the previous year. Its airframe had accumulated 2,246 hours in total. It was equipped with two model 506-14 Spey engines manufactured by

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

. Its registration number was N1116J with the aircraft name ''Discover America''. The captain was 43-year-old Charles E. Bullock, who had logged 13,875 flight hours, including 603 hours on the BAC 1-11. The first officer was 33-year-old Troy E. Rudesill, who had 4,814 flight hours, with 667 of them on the BAC 1-11.

History of flight

The aircraft, a

, took off from runway 24 at

Elmira Corning Regional Airport Elmira Corning Regional Airport is in Chemung County, New York, seven miles northwest of Elmira and eight miles east of Corning. It is in the town of Big Flats but its mailing address is Horseheads, New York. The airport was formerly Elmira ...

at approximately 14:39 EDT. It was cleared to climb to five minutes later. Nine minutes after that, several eyewitnesses saw large pieces of the

tailplane A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabiliser, is a small lifting surface located on the tail ( empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters and gyropl ...

break away from the aircraft with flames and smoke coming out from the

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

, as the flight proceeded south from

Mansfield, Pennsylvania Mansfield is a borough located in east-central Tioga County, Pennsylvania, United States, in the Tioga River valley. It is situated at the intersection of U.S. Route 6 and U.S. Business Route 15, about southwest of Elmira, New York. History In ...

. The aircraft subsequently lost control and plunged into a heavily wooded area served only by dirt roads. No one on the ground was hurt, but there were no survivors aboard the plane. Thereafter, the air traffic controller at New York Center vectored a

Piper Aztec The Piper PA-23, named Apache and later Aztec, is an American four- to six-seat twin-engined light aircraft aimed at the general-aviation market. The United States Navy and military forces in other countries also used it in small numbers. Origin ...

over the area of Flight 40's target disappearance. The pilot of this plane reported observing the burning wreckage of an airplane, which was later identified as Flight 40. The plane gouged a strip through the woods about wide and long. The tail section was thrown from the impact site of the crash. Some of the witnesses were workmen at a coal strip mine who immediately took a bulldozer and plowed two roads through to the site a mile and a half away. Shortly after the incident, Robert E. Peach, president of Mohawk, demanded an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In a telegram to J. Edgar Hoover, director of the F.B.I., Mr. Peach wrote: "Evidence has developed in the course of notification of next of kin of crash victims which leads to strong suggestion of sabotage. Mohawk Airlines formally demands that the F.B.I. investigate the possibility of sabotage." However, Mr. Peach did not make public the nature of the "evidence."

Investigation

The

National Transportation Safety Board The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and inci ...

launched a full investigation. The findings of that investigation are as follows: A non-return valve in the

auxiliary power unit An auxiliary power unit (APU) is a device on a vehicle that provides energy for functions other than propulsion. They are commonly found on large aircraft and naval ships as well as some large land vehicles. Aircraft APUs generally produce 115& ...

had suffered a complete failure. This allowed bleed air from the engine to flow through the system in the wrong direction. This air exited at the start of the system at sufficient temperatures to ignite components there. The fire quickly spread to the

hydraulics Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counte ...

in the aircraft, and moved along the hydraulic lines to the rear of the plane. There, it caused heavy damage to the tail, causing a loss of pitch control which sent the airplane diving into the ground.

Aftermath

In July 1967, the National Transportation Safety Board made three safety recommendations to the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic ...

, which issued

Airworthiness Directive An Airworthiness Directive (commonly abbreviated as AD) is a notification to owners and operators of certified aircraft that a known safety deficiency with a particular model of aircraft, engine, avionics or other system exists and must be correct ...

68-01-01 to prevent heat damage or fire in the airframe plenum of the

installation. On 23 June 2017, a memorial was erected to honor the victims.

Notes

References

*
National Transportation Safety Board Summary

National Transportation Safety Board Aircraft Accident Report - April 18, 1968

External links

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20140714170908/http://www.baaa-acro.com/Photos-64/N1116J.jpg A photo of the accident aircraft {{Aviation accidents and incidents in 1967 Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1967 1967 in Pennsylvania Airliner accidents and incidents in Pennsylvania Airliner accidents and incidents caused by in-flight fires Airliner accidents and incidents caused by mechanical failure Airliner accidents and incidents caused by in-flight structural failure Accidents and incidents involving the BAC One-Eleven Mohawk Airlines accidents and incidents Tioga County, Pennsylvania June 1967 events in the United States