DC-8 crash near Los Angeles

The plane on this flight was a Douglas DC-8-62 manufactured by McDonnell Douglas , with registration number LN-MOO (factory number 45822, serial number 272 ^[1] ) named Sverre Viking and with 4 Pratt & Whitney JT3D-3B turbojets. This DC-8 was released in 1967 and received a flight certificate on June 23 . He went on to Det Norske Luftfartselskap (DNL) , controlled by the Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) . The last annual inspection it took place on April 3, 1968 , after which it had a raid of 3425 hours , and the last periodic inspection - January 12, 1969 . The latest equipment checks were conducted on January 13, 4 hours before departure from Copenhagen. The total flight time of the airliner was 6948 hours ^[2] .

At an intermediate landing in Seattle , the crew changed to a new one, which arrived in Seattle on January 11 . The crew was as follows:

• The aircraft commander (FAC) is 50-year-old Kenneth Davies , who has been with the SAS since February 1, 1948 . Prior to joining SAS, Davis was a military pilot in the Royal Air Force Coastal Command squadron. Directly during the period of work in SAS, he had 11 135 hours of flight, of which 900 on DC-8. Also, the commander was certified for flights on such aircraft as DC-3 , DC-6 , DC-7 and CV-990 ^[3] .
• Co - pilot - 40-year-old Hans Ingvar Hansson ( Swede. Hans Ingvar Hansson ), who worked in the SAS from August 5, 1957 . The co-pilot was also qualified for flying the CV-440 and DC-7 . Directly during the period of work in the SAS, it had 5814 hours of flight, of which 973 hours on DC-8 ^[4] .
• Flight Engineer - 32-year-old Oke Ingvar Andersson ( Swede. Ake Ingvar Andersson ), who worked in the SAS from May 23, 1966 . He was qualified for DC-8 flights only. Directly during the period of work in SAS, he had 985 hours of flight, all on DC-8 ^[4] .

6 cabin crew worked in the cabin ^[2] .

Due to the expectation of suitable weather in Los Angeles, the plane left Seattle only at 15:46, after a delay of 1 hour 11 minutes. Onboard there were 36 passengers and 25 tons of fuel ^[5] .

The flight to Los Angeles went without deviations, however, when approaching runway No. 07R (right), the front landing gear light did not light up. Flying over the Gulf of Santa Monica, the airliner fell into the fog, which required to fly along the IFR , as weather conditions did not allow visual flight . But instead, the flight crew focused on determining the position of the front strut and control over instrument readings was lost. As a result, the airliner continued to decline at 19:21:30 in the landing configuration with flaps released and the landing gear crashed into the waters of the bay ^[6] .

From the impact, the fuselage was broken into three parts, after which the tail part sank quickly at a depth of 106 meters, and the front part with the center section and the crew cabin remained afloat for about 20 hours, which allowed most people to escape. A total of 4 bodies were found - 1 flight attendant and 3 passengers, another 2 flight attendants and 9 passengers were missing and were declared dead. Thus, a total of 15 people died in the crash. Another 17 people (FAC, co-pilot, flight engineer, 3 flight attendants and 11 passengers) were injured. 13 passengers were not injured ^[7] .

Lack of coordination of crew actions and insufficient control over the location of the aircraft in space during the critical phase of landing on instruments, which led to uncontrolled launching. This uncontrolled descent was facilitated by the failure of the warning light of the landing gear position and the omission of the decision altitude with a complex approach approach.

Original text

The lack of crew coordination and the inadequate monitoring of the aircraft position in space during a critical phase of an instrument approach which resulted in an unplanned descent into the water. Contributing to this unplanned descent was an apparent unsafe landing gear condition induced by the design of the landing gear indicator lights, and the omission of the minimum crossing altitude at an approach fix depicted on the approach chart. ^[8] .

• The crash of the Boeing 727 near Los Angeles - occurred almost there in five days

Accidents due to crew distraction on chassis problems

• The crash of IL-14 in Tashkent
• Landing of the Tu-124 on the Neva
• Disaster L-1011 in the Everglades
• Disaster DC-8 near Caseville
• DC-8 crash in Portland

• Scandinavian Airlines System, McDonnell-Douglas DC-8-62, LN-M00 (Norweigian Registry) in Santa Monica Bay, near Los Angeles, California, January 13, 1969. (English) . National Transportation Safety Board (1 July 1970). Date of treatment July 4, 2013. Archived July 10, 2013.