Accident | |
---|---|
Date | 15 November 1957 |
Summary | Engine stoppage |
Site | Near Chessell, Isle of Wight, England 50°40′05″N1°26′37″W / 50.6681°N 1.4435°W |
Aircraft type | Short Solent 3 |
Aircraft name | City of Sidney |
Operator | Aquila Airways |
Registration | G-AKNU |
Flight origin | Southampton Water |
Passengers | 50 |
Crew | 8 |
Fatalities | 45 |
Survivors | 13 |
The 1957 Aquila Airways Solent crash occurred on the Isle of Wight in England on 15 November. With 45 lives lost, at the time it was the second worst aircraft accident within the United Kingdom, then at the time the worst ever air disaster to occur on English soil. [1]
The aircraft, an Aquila Airways Short Solent 3 flying boat named the City of Sydney, registered G-AKNU, departed Southampton Water at 22:46 on a night flight to Las Palmas and Madeira via Lisbon. At 22:54, the crew radioed to report that the number 4 propeller had been feathered (No. 4 engine feathered. Coming back in a hurry. [2] ). During an attempt to return, the Solent crashed into a disused chalk pit adjacent to heavily forested downland. The crash site is on a steep eastern slope of Shalcombe Down, above the small villages of Chessell and Shalcombe. At the time of impact, the plane was banked 45 degrees to the right, the same side of the aircraft that had lost all engine power according to the accident report. The aircraft caught fire on impact. However, three soldiers on a night-exercise were close by when the crash happened and were on the scene within minutes; they managed to rescue some of the survivors from the burning wreckage, suffering burns as they did so. [3]
Except for the tail, the aircraft was destroyed. Of the 58 on board, 45 were killed and 13 injured. [4] Initially 43 perished, but two more later succumbed to their injuries. [5]
In the days following, the crash-site became a scene of morbid interest and crowds of people came to see it; a police presence was required to keep them at distance. [3]
A public inquiry by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch of the Ministry of Transport [6] concluded that the essential cause remains unknown. [2] The accident was caused by the stoppage of the No.3 engine while the No.4 engine was also stopped. What caused the initial failure of the No.4 engine is unknown. The cause of the subsequent number 3 engine stoppage was either an electrical failure in the fuel cutoff actuator circuit or the accidental operation of the cutoff switch. [1]
The soldiers who rescued crash survivors later received awards for their actions; Major W.J.F. Weller and Lieutenant J.R. Sherbourn were made Members of the Order of the British Empire, Company quartermaster sergeant J.W. Reid, was awarded the British Empire Medal. [7]
Aquila Airways, after operating for 10 years announced in July 1958 it would cease operations, nine months after the crash. [8]
A 50th anniversary memorial service was held in the village of Brook, Isle of Wight on 18 November 2007 to commemorate the lives lost. [9] In October 2008 a permanent memorial was dedicated at Brook's St Mary's Church, about 0.7 miles (1.1 km) due south of the crash site. [5] [10]
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(help) 11-page extract from ICAO Circular 56-AN/51 (p.227-237), hosted by baaa-acro.com (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives) A flying boat is a type of seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in having a fuselage that is purpose-designed for flotation, while floatplanes rely on fuselage-mounted floats for buoyancy.
A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteristics: floatplanes and flying boats; the latter are generally far larger and can carry far more. Seaplanes that can also take off and land on airfields are in a subclass called amphibious aircraft, or amphibians. Seaplanes were sometimes called hydroplanes, but currently this term applies instead to motor-powered watercraft that use the technique of hydrodynamic lift to skim the surface of water when running at speed.
The Saunders-Roe SR.45 Princess was a British flying boat aircraft developed and built by Saunders-Roe at their Cowes facility on the Isle of Wight. It is the largest all-metal flying boat to have ever been constructed.
The Kegworth air disaster occurred when British Midland Airways Flight 092, a Boeing 737-400, crashed onto the motorway embankment between the M1 motorway and A453 road near Kegworth, Leicestershire, England, while attempting to make an emergency landing at East Midlands Airport on 8 January 1989.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1957.
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The Short Solent is a passenger flying boat that was produced by Short Brothers in the late 1940s. It was developed from the Short Seaford, itself a development of the Short Sunderland military flying boat design.
Aquila Airways was a British independent airline, formed on 18 May 1948 and based in Southampton, Hampshire.
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On Sunday 10 March 1946 a Douglas DC-3 aircraft departed from Hobart, Tasmania for a flight to Melbourne. The aircraft crashed into the sea with both engines operating less than 2 minutes after takeoff. All twenty-five people on board the aircraft died. It was Australia's worst civil aviation accident at the time.
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 passing of the Civil Aviation Act 1946, European and South American services passed to two further state-owned airlines, British European Airways (BEA) and British South American Airways (BSAA). BOAC absorbed BSAA in 1949, but BEA continued to operate British domestic and European routes for the next quarter century. The Civil Aviation Act 1971 merged BOAC and BEA, effective 31 March 1974, forming today's British Airways.
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