On 5 April 1986, at 13:26, an Eagle Air Piper PA-23-250 Aztec light aircraft crashed in

Ljósufjöll Ljósufjöll () is a fissure vent system and central volcano on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula in Iceland. The name derives from the central volcano and translates into English as "Mountains of the Light". Geography The volcanic system has a lengt ...

Snæfellsnes The Snæfellsnes () is a peninsula situated to the west of Borgarfjörður, in western Iceland. The peninsula has a volcanic origin having the Snæfellsnes volcanic belt down its centre, and the Snæfellsjökull volcano A volcano is com ...

, Iceland killing five of the occupants on board. The aircraft was on a charter flight from

Ísafjörður Ísafjörður (pronounced , meaning ''ice fjord'', literally ''fjord of ices'') is a town in the northwest of Iceland. The oldest part of Ísafjörður with the town centre is located on a spit of sand, or ''eyri'', in Skutulsfjörður, a fjord ...

Reykjavík Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...

and carried six passengers, including a couple with an 11-month-old child, and a pilot. It was believed that the plane landed in a

downdraft In meteorology, an updraft (British English: ''up-draught'') is a small-scale current of rising air, often within a cloud. Overview Vertical drafts, known as updrafts or downdrafts, are localized regions of warm or cool air that move vertically ...

and crashed into the slopes of Ljósufjöll, south of Sóleyjardalur. It remains one of the deadliest aviation accidents in Iceland's history and resulted in changes to aviation regulations and procedures to increase the flow of up-to-date weather information to pilots. The wreckage of the plane was found on the northern slopes of Ljósufjöll, at an altitude of , just before midnight the same day. Men from the Air Rescue Squad in Reykjavík were the first to arrive at the scene of the accident and there were three passengers alive in the wreckage, but one passenger died in a snowmobile on the way down the mountain.

Investigation

Final Report

An investigation by the Air Accident Committee and the Civil Aviation Administration concluded that the plane likely landed in a

resulting in it crashing into the slopes of Ljósufjöll. It also concluded that a large part of the cause was due to the pilots lack of access to current weather information in the area.

Recommendations

The accident and investigation resulted in changes on aviation regulations and procedures to increase the flow of up-to-date weather information between pilots and the Icelandic Meteorological Office. It also led to an overhaul of how air operators' logbooks, brochures and other educational material published by the Civil Aviation Administration are used in pilot training and retraining, e.g. in pilots aptitude test.

Aftermath

Three days after the crash, a survivor who lost his wife and child in the crash, told his story in an interview with

Morgunblaðið ''Morgunblaðið'' (, ''The Morning Paper'') is an Icelandic daily newspaper. ''Morgunblaðið''s website, mbl.is, is the most popular website in Iceland. It is currently the country's only daily printed newspaper and the newspaper of record. Hi ...

. The interview caused a considerable backlash towards the newspaper and doctors at Borgarspítalinn. The aftermath of the accident also caused a controversy in Iceland due to the governments regulations regarding passenger compensations for plane accidents which was 47-times lower than passengers in an automobile accident could receive.

In popular culture

In 2020,

RÚV Ríkisútvarpið (, ; abbr. RÚV ) is Iceland's national public broadcasting, public-service broadcasting organization. Founded in 1930, it operates from studios in the country's capital, Reykjavík, as well as regional centres around the count ...

featured the accident in a three-part radio series. In 2011, the accident was featured in the book ''Útkall - Ofviðri í Ljósufjöllum'', part of the ''Útkall'' book series by Óttar Sveinsson. In 2022, the story from the book was featured in the sixth episode of the

docuseries Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries. Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film. * Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...

''Útkall'' on the television channel Hringbraut.

References

External links

Report of the Air Accident Committee
{{Aviation accidents and incidents in Iceland 1986 in Iceland Icelandic Aviation accidents and incidents in Iceland