Test

The crew left Oklahoma City-Wiley Post Airport on a local test flight. While in cruising altitude, the airplane disappeared from radar screens, dove into the ground and crashed in an open field. Debris scattered on a wide area and both occupants were killed.

The crew was engaged in a local post maintenance test flight at Vinnitsa Airport. After takeoff, while climbing to a height of 100 meters, the airplane banked left and crashed in a field located 1,200 meters past the runway end. The aircraft was destroyed and all three occupants were killed.

While approaching Villavicencio-La Vanguardia Airport following a test flight, the crew encountered engine problems and attempted an emergency landing when the seaplane crashed few km from the airport. A crew member was killed while two others were injured.

Parked on apron, the airplane was completing an engine run with three technicians on board. The airplane jumped over the chocks, rolled for few meters before colliding with a concrete wall. All three occupants were injured and the aircraft was damaged beyond repair.

The aircraft was engaged in a local test flight at Moffett Airbase, carrying three crew members and eight NASA scientists in charge to test a survey equipment over the Monterey Bay. Following an uneventful mission, the crew started the approach and was cleared to land on runway 32R while seven miles out. In the region was also operated a US Navy Lockheed P-3C-125-LO Orion registered 157332 and that was completing a local training flight with a crew of six on board. After been cleared, the Orion's crew informed ATC he was joining the runway 32L approach path when the controller cleared the crew of the Convair to land at runway 32L. Shortly later, at an altitude of about 300 feet, the nose gear of the Convair struck the top of the Orion's tail. Both airplanes went out of control and crashed in flames on the Sunnyvale golf course located about 0,3 mile short of runway threshold. A crew member from the Orion was seriously injured while all 16 other occupants on both aircraft were killed.

The crew departed Glasgow Airport at 1422LT on a local post-maintenance test flight with two engineers and two pilots on board. The airplane flew north at an altitude of 4,000 feet under VFR mode for approximately 7 minutes and a half when the captain asked for clearance back into the Glasgow Control Zone. Less than two minutes later, while cruising in poor weather conditions (snow showers), the airplane struck the slope of Mt Ben More (3,852 feet high). The aircraft disintegrated on impact and all four occupants were killed.
Crew:
Walter Duward, pilot,
Stan Kemp, copilot.
Passengers:
Paddy Quinn, engineer,
Jimmy Moore, engineer.

The crew (a pilot and a flight engineer) were engaged in a test flight on this first Dassault Falcon 10 prototype of the French manufacturer Avions Marcel Dassault (Dassault Aviation). While cruising at an altitude of 15,000 feet and a speed of 360 knots, control was lost. The airplane entered a dive and crashed in an open field located in Loreux, about 8 km northeast of Romorantin-Lanthenay. The aircraft was destroyed and both occupants were killed.
Crew:
Alain Tretout, pilot,
Jacques Ladeux, flight engineer.

The crew departed Moscow-Sheremetyevo Airport on a local test flight in which he had to turn off all generators in order to know the maximum life of batteries. On approach, while completing a turn at an altitude of 400 meters, both engines failed simultaneously. The crew elected to restart the engine but without success so the captain elected to ditch the aircraft into the Ikshinskoye Reservoir (Moscow Canal) located 18 km north of Sheremetyevo Airport. The aircraft was partially submerged but recovered and all five crew members escaped uninjured.

The crew was engaged in a series of test flights on this brand new aircraft that should be delivered to the Royal Thai Air Force. Shortly after takeoff, while climbing, the engine failed. The airplane lost height and crashed. Both occupants were injured and the airplane was destroyed.

The 614 had been designed with servo-tab elevators, control and trim tabs on the rudder, and spring and trim tabs on the ailerons. The result of this was a very complex mathematical model of vibration characteristics, which was not complete by the time of the first flight. This was accordingly limited to a maximum indicated airspeed of 140kt and an altitude of 3,000ft, Flight tests were pushed out towards the edges of the envelope: 330 kt IAS, Mach 0-74 diving speed; 285 kt IAS, Mach 0-65 V M O . Real-time data monitoring and transmission was used to assist in observing the flights. Flying went ahead cautiously in the second half of 1971, because ground-resonance testing of the 614 was not showing full correlation with prediction. As the envelope was extended small explosive charges—"bonkers"—were used to stimulate flutter conditions. The most serious flutter problem centred on the elevators. At 260 kt IAS and 10,000ft and above, the firing of asymmetric bonkers on the elevator caused a 3sec flutter phase. This was stopped either by a reduction in speed or a permanent distortion of the tailplane structure. Apart from the restriction caused by the flutter problem, the first 614 cleared the flight envelope to 260 kt IAS and 25,000ft, for lateral, directional and longitudinal stability. The accident to the first aircraft occurred after it had been fitted with flutter dampers. The effect of these was to re-introduce the asymmetric flutter at 220 kt and 10,000ft on a check flight. This time the flutter could not be eliminated by slowing down and the crew abandoned the aircraft. The aircraft dove into the ground and crashed in a field near Bremen-Neuenland Airport. Two occupants were rescued while the copilot Hans Bardill was killed when his parachute failed to open.
Source: Flight International