The R6D-1 crash in the Atlantic is a major accident that happened on Wednesday night October 10, 1956 with the American military aircraft Douglas R6D-1 in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean . Officially, 59 people died, which at that time made this incident the second among those that occurred in the Atlantic and with DC-6 family aircraft [1] .
| Catastrophe in the Atlantic | |
|---|---|
 U.S. Navy R6D-1 Liftmaster | |
| General information | |
| date | October 10, 1956 |
| Time | about 22:10 |
| Character | Missing |
| A place | Atlantic Ocean , 370 miles (590 km) west-south-west of Lands End ( UK ) |
| Aircraft | |
| Model | Douglas R6D-1 Liftmaster |
| Affiliation |  MATS |
| Departure point |  Lakenheath ( UK ) |
| Stopover |  Lajes , Terceira ( Portugal ) |
| Destination |  McGuire ( New Jersey , USA ) |
| Board number | BuNo 131588 |
| Date of issue | 1953 year |
| Passengers | 50 |
| Crew | 9 |
| Dead | 59 (all were missing) |
| Survivors | 0 (no survivors found) |
Holocaust
Douglas R6D-1 Liftmaster with registration number 131588 (serial number 43691, serial 321, built in 1953 [2] ) from the Military Air Transport Service (subordinate to the US Navy ) made a transatlantic flight from the UK to New Jersey with an intermediate landing on the Azores . The plane transported a group of 50 military personnel from the 307th bomber wing US Air Force (at that time it was based at the Lincoln air base in Nebraska ) returning from England after a 90-day mission [3] . With 50 passengers and 9 crew on board, the Douglas flew off the British Lakenhit airbase and after climbing climbed to a level of 15,000 feet (4600 m ). The last radio communication with the airborne 131588 was at 20:55, when the crew announced their whereabouts. At about 10:10 p.m. the plane crashed in the ocean; the crew did not even manage to transmit a distress signal [4] .
Organized searches managed to find only a few life jackets and a front landing gear floating 370 miles west-southwest of the Lands End — and no more Douglas traces. According to reports, the investigators found signs of fire damage on existing fragments, which left a number of open versions [4] . All 59 people flying on the plane were declared dead, which at that time made the on-board catastrophe 131588 second in scale, as was the case with the Douglas DC-6 family aircraft, giving way to the crash of another R6D-1 in the Hawaiian Islands 19 months earlier (66 dead) , and among those that happened in the neutral waters of the Atlantic, inferior to what happened 3 months before the disaster of the Venezuelan Lockheed Super Constellation near New York (74 dead) [1] .
See also
- The disappearance of the C-124 in the Atlantic
- Crash R6D-1 in Hawaii
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 ASN Aircraft accident Douglas R6D-1 (DC-6) 131588 Land's End, UK . Aviation Safety Network . Date of appeal April 17, 2018.
- ↑ rzjets.net . Date of appeal April 17, 2018.
- ↑ US Navy and US Marine Corps BuNos. Third Series (130,265 to 135773) Joseph F. Baugher. Date of appeal April 17, 2018.
- ↑ 1 2 Crash of a Douglas R6D-1 into the Atlantic Ocean: 59 killed . Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives. Date of appeal April 17, 2018.