Scheduled Revenue Flight

Viscount aeroplane type 803, registration: EI-AOM departed from Cork Airport at 10.32 hours en route for London operating as Aer Lingus Flight 712. The take-off was normal. The flight was cleared by Air Traffic Control to proceed via Airways Blue 10, Green 1 at flight level 170 (17,000'). At 10.38, when the aeroplane had passed through 7,000', clearance on course to Tuskar was given. At 10.40, after the flight had reported it was by Youghal at 7,500' climbing to 17,000', ATC Cork suggested that if desired, the flight could route direct to Strumble. No direct acceptance of this suggestion was received. At 10.57.07 the flight reported "by Bannow (a reporting point on the route at 51º 68' N - 06º 12' W) level 170 (17,000') estimating Strumble at 03". The flight was instructed to change to the London Airways frequency of 131.2, and this was acknowledged by the reply "131.2". The time of this call was 10.57.29. At 10.58.02, London Radar intercepted a call (garbled and simultaneous with another call) which appeared to be, and was later confirmed as "Echo India Alpha Oscar Mike with you", and eight (8) seconds later, a call was intercepted which was interpreted as "Five thousand feet descending spinning rapidly". This call was also heard by another Aer Lingus aircraft en route Dublin-Bristol (The word "Five" was later, after repeated acoustic analysis, interpreted as more likely to be the word "twelve".) This was the last call received from the aircraft. At 11.10, London ATC advised Shannon ATC that they had no radio contact with EI-AOM. At 11.13 London advised Shannon that they had requested Aer Lingus Flight EI 362 (Dublin-Bristol) to search west of Strumble. This flight descended to 500' in good visibility, but saw nothing. Between 11.13 and 11.25, efforts were made to make radio contact with the flight, with no result, and at 11.25 a full alert was declared. At 12.36 a report from the U.K. was received by Haulbowline that wreckage had been sighted in position 51º 57' N, 06º 10' W Rosslare Lifeboat was proceeding, but two surface vessels within 4 nautical miles of this position saw nothing. At 12.52 hours the Air Corps reported that they had dispatched a Dove aeroplane and a helicopter to search. At 13.10 hours there were ten aircraft from the U.K. in the search area. At 15.30 hours the reported sighting of wreckage was cancelled. Nothing positive was discovered on this day. On 25 March 1968, at 06.15 hours, the search was resumed by aircraft and ships from the U.K., and at 12.41 hours, wreckage was sighted and bodies recovered from a position 6 nautical miles north-east of Tuskar Rock. More floating wreckage was reported scattered for a further 6 nautical miles north-west of this point. The Irish Naval Service ship, L.E. Macha, which had been on patrol off the north-west coast, joined in the search on 26 March 1968, and took over duty as Search Controller. A total of 13 bodies was eventually recovered in the search during the next few days, together with a quantity of light floating wreckage-mostly cabin furnishings, and some baggage, seat cushions, and the wheels and inner cylinder from the port main landing gear. One additional body was recovered later. The position of the main wreckage remained obscure in spite of prolonged and diligent search by sonar equipped ships of the British Navy and trawling by Irish trawlers-"Glendalough" from Kilmore Quay and "Cu na Mara" of the Irish Fisheries Board (An Bord Iascaigh Mhara). Eventually, on 5 June 1968 "Glendalough" hauled in position 1.72 nautical miles from Tuskar Rock with Tuskar bearing 280º, in 39 fathoms and brought up a quantity of positively identifiable wreckage. The "Cu na Mara" in the same location also brought up wreckage. On the following day more wreckage was brought up by these trawlers, and divers from H.M.S. Reclaim confirmed a mass of wreckage "like a scrap yard" in this position. Subsequent salvage operations confirmed that a major portion of the aircraft at least was located here. Two eyewitnesses, one a sailor on a coastal vessel, who thought he had seen an aircraft crash into the sea but did not report it at the time, and another witness on shore, who saw a splash in the sea near the Tuskar Rock, gave the time as between 11.10 and 11.15. The position lines of these two witnesses approximately cross the location where the main wreckage was eventually found. The aircraft was totally demolished by violent impact with the sea. The bulk of the wreckage was found in 39 fathoms of water with all parts lying in close proximity. About 60-65% of the aircraft (by weight) was recovered, and included the major parts of three engines, a few parts of the fourth, and all four propellers, the almost complete primary structure of the wings from tip to tip, and the fin and rudder. None of the wreckage displayed any evidence of fire or explosion. No part of the tail planes or elevators were recovered, with the exception of small portions of the spring tab and trim tab. The recovered wreckage revealed extensive damage to the whole structure, which virtually disintegrated.

En route, the crew informed ATC about the failure of the left engine and was cleared to divert to Evansville-Dress Airport for an emergency landing. On short final, the captain decided to make a go-around when the airplane stalled and crashed short of runway threshold. All 42 occupants were evacuated among them 10 were injured. The aircraft was considered as damaged beyond repair.

Flight UM507 was a scheduled domestic flight from Manila International Airport to Lapu-Lapu/Mactan International Airport. Before departure the pilot was briefed by the Air Manila dispatcher on the existence of a cold front across the route and was provided with an en-route weather forecast valid from 1200 to 2400 hours which mentioned "Isolated thunderstorm over Eastern Visayas and generally fair elsewhere". No information regarding thunderstorms on the route was given to the pilot. The flight took off from Manila at 1814 hours and was cleared to Mactan at FL 130 by the ATC, via Track 5, Amber 4 and Amber 1. The flight plan proposed an airspeed of 210 kt and an estimated time en route of 1 hour 45 minutes. Normal radio contact was maintained at all time between the flight and the air traffic services. At 1908 hours the flight reported over Romblon at FL 130, estimating Mactan at 1954 hours. This was the last message from the aircraft. Several residents of Ibajay, a coastal town in Aklan, stated that at approximately 1918 hours they had heard a sound similar to that of an aircraft flying at high altitude in a southeast direction along the coastline. They then heard several loud explosions and saw fireballs falling into the sea. They all agreed that the initial fire- ball they saw could not have been the result of a prolonged fire, but rather a small fire which rapidly developed into a large orange-yellow-red ball and then disappeared. After a few moments, smaller fireballs emerged from the large one, some dying out before reaching the sea, some reaching the sea and developing into a large fire. At the same time a large object resembling an airplane was seen to emerge from thick clouds and fall into the sea followed by a trail of smaller objects. Approximately one hour later two bodies were recovered from approximately 2 km offshore of Bo. Colong-Colong, Ibajay, Aklan.

During the takeoff roll at Volgograd Airport, after a course of 1,000 meters and while at a speed of 260 km/h, the captain attempted to rotate and pulled the control column. In the same time, he mistakenly pushed the spoiler switch for a period of three seconds. After rotation, the aircraft climbed to a height of 10-15 meters and flew for a distance of about 400 meters then banked left and struck the ground. Upon impact, the left wing was torn off and the airplane crashed in a grassy area and came to rest, broken in three. The wreckage was found 83 meters to the left of the runway and 1,640 meters from the runway threshold. 44 people were evacuated safely while four others were seriously injured, among them the copilot, the board mechanic and the board agent. The radio navigator was killed.

Air France Flight 212 was a scheduled service from Santiago (Chile) to Paris (France) with en route stops at Quito (Ecuador), Caracas (Venezuela), Pointe-à-Pitre (Guadeloupe) and Lisbon (Portugal). The flight was operated by a brand new Boeing 707, named "Château de Lavoûte-Polignac", which had just been delivered to Air France a month and a half before the accident. The aircraft took off from Caracas at 19:27 for an estimated one hour and eight-minute flight to Pointe-à-Pitre on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. The aircraft climbed to a cruising altitude of FL330 and the flight crew contacted the Piarco FIR controller at approximately 19:53 hours. They reported flying at FL330 and estimating over Piarco at 20:00, over the OA reporting point at 20:09 and reaching Pointe-à-Pitre at 20:32. At approximately 20:09 the flight reported over OA and requested authorization to descend in five minutes time. Piarco cleared the flight to the Guadeloupe radio beacon at FL90 and asked it to report when leaving FL330 and when reaching FL150. At 20:14, three minutes sooner than planned, the crew reported leaving FL330. Seven minutes later they reported passing FL150. It was then cleared to contact the Guadeloupe ACC and was advised that an aircraft proceeding from Martinique to Guadeloupe was flying at FL80 and estimating Guadeloupe at 20:44 hours. About 20:24 the flight reached the cleared altitude of FL90. After several unsuccessful attempts the flight established radio contact with Pointe-à-Pitre Tower at 20:29. It was again cleared to FL90, given a QNH of 1016 mb and requested to report at FL90, or runway in sight. Following a different route than normal, the airplane passed a brightly lit town (Basse Terre) on the coast of Guadeloupe. The pilot-in-command probably erroneously believed that it was Pointe-à-Pitre and that he would reach Le Raizet Airport in approximately one minute. At 20:29:35 the crew replied that the aircraft was at FL90 and they estimated they would be over the airport in approximately 1-1,5 minute. Less than one minute later they reported seeing the airport and were cleared for a visual approach to runway 11. The aircraft then descended over mountainous terrain and passed Saint Claude at an altitude of approximately 4,400 ft. Flight 212 was observed to impact on the southern slope of La Découverte, the peak of the La Soufrière Volcano, at an elevation of 1,200 m (3,937 ft).

While cruising at an altitude of 8,000 metres on the leg from Krasnoyarsk to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the crew sent a short inaudible message of two seconds. Shortly later, the airplane entered an uncontrolled descent and reached the vertical speed of 3,360 - 11,000 feet per minute. Once the altitude of 3,000 meters was reached on descent, the vertical speed increased from 9,850 to 24,600 feet per minute. The airplane then made a turn to the right, got inverted and partially disintegrated at an altitude of 650 meters. Debris crashed at a speed of 890 km/h in an uninhabited area located 13 km northeast of Parchum. Debris scattered on a large zone and miraculously, a passenger was found alive while 83 other occupants were killed.

The airplane was completing a flight from Luang Namtha to Vientiane with an intermediate stop in Sayaboury. On the first leg, the airplane went out of control and crashed on the slope of a mountain located in the region of Ban Napa. The wreckage was found few hours later and all 37 occupants were killed, among them several tourists and two French citizens.

During the takeoff roll at Donetsk Airport, the crew decided to abort for unknown reason. Unable to stop within the remaining distance, the aircraft overran, lost its undercarriage and came to rest. There were no casualties.

On final approach to Baghdad Airport, the aircraft struck a building and crashed, killing both crew members.

Flight No. 10 operated by Civil Air Transport was a scheduled international flight from Taipei to Hong Kong and return. The accident occurred on the return trip from Hong Kong to Taipei. The aircraft departed Hong Kong at 2018 hours local time. At 2045 hours it reported to Taipei Area Control Centre over Yellowtail, a compulsory reporting intersection, at flight level 29 000 ft. At 2059 hours it reported over Makung VOR, and was then cleared to descend to 11 000 ft. At 2111 hours it reported over Hsinchu (PO) NDB at 11 000 ft and was cleared to descend to 5 000 ft crossing Taoyuan (GM) NDB and to 2 000 ft crossing Linkuo outer marker for a straight-in ILS approach to runway 10. The current Taipei weather information was also given to the pilot at that time. At 2118 hours the aircraft reported approaching Linkuo outer marker at 2 000 ft and was cleared to continue its ILS approach and to contact Taipei Tower. The aircraft reported to Taipei Tower and requested landing instructions. The tower controller advised the pilot to continue his ILS approach to runway 10, gave him the surface wind and the altimeter setting and requested him to report approach lights in sight. The pilot acknowledged all this information. From that moment, even though repeated attempts to contact the aircraft were made by Taipei Tower and Taipei Area Control Centre, no further communication was received from the aircraft. Then, right after, Taipei Area Control Centre was informed that the aircraft had crashed in the vicinity of Linkou, about 8 miles west of Taipei City. Three crew members, 18 passengers and one person on the ground were killed. The aircraft was destroyed. It was found during the investigation that the left hand pilot seat was not occupied by the assigned pilot-in-command, but by another Senior Pilot of Civil Air Transport.