Accident | |
---|---|
Date | 25 September 1996 |
Summary | Engine failure |
Site | Lutjeswaard, Netherlands 52°59′43.32″N4°59′13.47″E / 52.9953667°N 4.9870750°E |
Aircraft | |
Aircraft type | Douglas DC-3 |
Operator | Dutch Dakota Association |
Registration | PH-DDA |
Flight origin | Schiphol |
Stopover | Texel International Airport |
Destination | Schiphol |
Occupants | 32 |
Passengers | 26 |
Crew | 6 |
Fatalities | 32 |
Survivors | 0 |
The 1996 Texel Douglas DC-3 crash occurred on September 25, 1996, when the Douglas DC-3 aircraft, nicknamed "Dakota" and registered as PH-DDA, operated by the Dutch Dakota Association (DDA), crashed into the Wadden Sea. The accident resulted in the loss of all 32 occupants on board. The incident is known as the "Dakota disaster" (Dutch: Dakotaramp) in the Netherlands and Belgium.
The flight, from Schiphol to the Texel International Airport and back, was part of an outing for the staff of the Roads, Traffic, and Transport department of the province of Noord-Holland, and some employees of DDA sponsor Ballast Nedam. [1] On the return trip from Texel to Schiphol, the left engine failed over the Wadden Sea. The crew could not feather the propeller of this engine. Just before 5:00 PM local time, the aircraft crashed on the sandbank Lutjeswaard, north of Den Oever, 18 kilometers from Den Helder. The crash resulted in the death of 31 occupants, including the six-member crew. One passenger died on the way to the hospital.
The aircraft was built in 1943 as a military transport aircraft (version C-47A-70DL) and was delivered to the US Air Force in the same year. After World War II, it was converted into a passenger aircraft. In 1976, the aircraft was used in the filming of the movie A Bridge Too Far about Operation Market Garden. It was registered in the Dutch Aircraft Register on January 10, 1984, under number 3318. [2]
The Netherlands Aviation Safety Board conducted an investigation into the cause. The final report was published in December 1997. [3] It revealed that the aircraft had experienced problems before. Further investigation showed that the oil pump of one of the engines had become blocked, causing that engine to fail. A DC-3 does not have a warning system for oil pump malfunctions.
The exact reason why the aircraft crashed has never been fully determined. A DC-3 can fly on one engine, though with reduced power. [4] The propeller of the failed engine must be feathered, but it likely could not be done because a small piston in an oil pressure switch had become stuck. [5]
The workload of the crew was increased due to multiple technical issues and the unfortunate layout of the Dakota's instrument panel. The crew was likely so focused on feathering the propeller that they paid insufficient attention to flying the aircraft. The precise sequence of events in the cockpit cannot be reconstructed as the aircraft was not equipped with a cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder.
The rules in the Netherlands for flying historical aircraft were tightened after the accident. Since then, the DDA fleet has operated under normal European JAR-OPS regulations, which also apply to regular civil aviation. One of the relatives filed a complaint against the DDA and accused Martin Schröder of having a certified engine from the crashed aircraft replaced with an uncertified engine, so that the certified engine could be installed in another DC-3, painted in the historical colors of Schröder's Martinair. Schröder filed a defamation complaint. The accusation was eventually withdrawn. [6] In 2019, the aviation authorities awarded the DDA an AOC (Air Operator Certificate), making it a fully-fledged commercial aviation organization.
In the garden of the Provincial House in Haarlem, there is a monument in memory of the victims. It was unveiled on September 25, 1997, by two chaplains of the Royal Netherlands Navy who assisted the relatives after the disaster. The monument, commissioned by the province of Noord-Holland and created by sculptor Theo Mulder, consists of a pedestal of basalt, a glass plate with the names of the victims, and a sculpture of bronze wings.
On the same day, a monument was also unveiled at Texel International Airport, consisting of a bronze sculpture of a DC-3 above a silhouette of the island of Texel executed in stainless steel.
Martinair is a Dutch cargo and former passenger airline headquartered and based at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. The airline was founded in 1958 by Martin Schröder, and is currently a subsidiary of Air France–KLM. Since 2011, Martinair has operated entirely as a cargo airline with scheduled services to 20 destinations worldwide and additional charter flights. Prior to that date, passenger flights were also operated.
The Douglas DC-7 is an American transport aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company from 1953 to 1958. A derivative of the DC-6, it was the last major piston engine-powered transport made by Douglas, being developed shortly after the earliest jet airliner—the de Havilland Comet—entered service and only a few years before the jet-powered Douglas DC-8 first flew in 1958. Larger numbers of both DC-7B and DC-7C variants were also built.
Texel International Airport is a small airport located 3.5 NM north northeast of Den Burg on the island of Texel in the north of the Netherlands. It has a customs service to handle international flights making it an international airport, though no scheduled international flights take place from the airport as the name might suggest. Because of this, it has no IATA code assigned to it.
Martinair Flight 495 was a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 operated by Dutch airline Martinair, that crash-landed in severe weather conditions at Faro Airport, Portugal on 21 December 1992. The aircraft carried 13 crew members and 327 passengers, mainly holidaymakers from the Netherlands. The crash killed 54 passengers and 2 crew members; 106 of the other occupants were badly injured.
The Dutch Dakota Association or DDA Classic Airlines, known by many just as the DDA, is a small foundation dedicated to the preservation and operation of classic aircraft, especially the Douglas DC-3 Dakota. They are located on the east side of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands.
KLM Flight 607-E was an international scheduled flight that crashed on 14 August 1958, on takeoff from Shannon Airport, Ireland. The aircraft was a Lockheed Super Constellation. All 99 on board died, making the crash the deadliest civil aviation disaster involving a single aircraft at the time, and the deadliest crash involving the Lockheed Constellation series, until the disappearance of Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 in 1962.
Mohawk Airlines Flight 405, a Fairchild Hiller FH-227 twin-engine turboprop airliner registered N7818M, was a domestic scheduled passenger flight operated by Mohawk Airlines that crashed into a house within the city limits of Albany, New York, on March 3, 1972, on final approach to Albany County Airport, New York, killing 17 people. The intended destination airport lies in the suburban Town of Colonie, about 4 miles north of the crash site.
KLM Cityhopper Flight 433 was a Saab 340B, registered as PH-KSH, which crashed during an emergency landing on 4 April 1994 and killing 3 occupants, including the captain. Flight 433 was a routine scheduled flight from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to Cardiff, Wales. The accident was caused by inadequate pilot training and a faulty sensor, leading to loss of control during go-around.
Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 was a passenger flight that crashed during landing at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, the Netherlands, on 25 February 2009, resulting in the deaths of nine passengers and crew, including all three pilots.
On 4 October 1992, El Al Flight 1862, a Boeing 747 cargo aircraft of the Israeli airline El Al, crashed into the Groeneveen and Klein-Kruitberg flats in the Bijlmermeer neighbourhood of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The accident is known in Dutch as the Bijlmerramp.
Martinair Flight 138 was a charter flight of Martinair from Surabaya to Jeddah with stopover in Colombo. On 4 December 1974, the Douglas DC-8 operating the flight crashed into a mountain shortly before landing, killing all 191 people aboard – 182 passengers, all of whom were Indonesian Hajj pilgrims, and nine crew members. The crash remains the deadliest in Sri Lankan aviation history and the third-deadliest involving a DC-8, after Arrow Air Flight 1285R and Nigeria Airways Flight 2120. At the time of the crash, it was the second-deadliest aviation accident in history, after the crash of Turkish Airlines Flight 981 which occurred earlier that same year.
The Douglas DC-2 is a 14-passenger, twin-engined airliner that was produced by the American company Douglas Aircraft Company starting in 1934. It competed with the Boeing 247. In 1935, Douglas produced a larger version called the DC-3, which became one of the most successful aircraft in history.
The 1946 KLM Douglas C-47 Amsterdam accident was the crash of a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight from London to Amsterdam on 14 November 1946. The accident occurred as the aircraft was attempting to land at Amsterdam's airport in poor weather. All 26 passengers and crew on board were killed.
China Southwest Airlines Flight 4146 was a domestic flight from Beijing Capital International Airport to Chongqing Baishiyi Airport. On 18 January 1988, an Ilyushin Il-18 flying the route crashed near Longfengxinmin Village, Chongqing, China, with the loss of all 108 passengers and crew. The crash was caused by poor maintenance.
The 1994 South Pacific Airmotive DC-3 crash took place on 24 April 1994, when a Douglas DC-3 airliner operated by South Pacific Airmotive, tail number VH-EDC, ditched into Botany Bay shortly after takeoff from Sydney Airport in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The cause of the crash was determined by the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation to have been a power loss in the aircraft's left engine caused by an inlet valve being stuck in the open position, compounded by inadequate action on the part of the pilots; Rod Lovell, the pilot in command of the flight, has disputed BASI's conclusions.
The crash of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 1–11 was an accident involving a Douglas DC-7C of the American airline Northwest Orient 8 km (5.0 mi) northeast off Polillo Island, Quezon, Philippines, on July 14, 1960. Of the 58 people on board, 57 survived with 44 suffering from minor injuries and one female passenger losing her life.
On 16 July 1935 a Douglas DC-2 aircraft, registration PH-AKM, operated by KLM, flying from Batavia, Dutch East Indies with several stopovers to Schiphol, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. After an emergency landing in Bushire, Iran the plane crashed the next day during take-off and the plane burned down.