1971 aviation accident in Germany
Paninternational Flight 112 was a BAC One-Eleven operated by German airline Paninternational that crashed in Hamburg on 6 September 1971 while attempting to land on an autobahn following the failure of both engines. The accident killed 22 passengers and crew out of 121 on board.
Aircraft.
The aircraft involved was a BAC One-Eleven registered as D-ALAR and first flew one year before the accident.
Accident.
Paninternational Flight 112 took off from Hamburg Airport in Hamburg, West Germany, on a flight to Málaga Airport in Málaga, Spain, with 115 passengers and six crew on board. The captain was Reinhold Hüls, a former military pilot with more than 3,000 hours flying time; co-pilot Elisabeth Friske was the first woman jet pilot in West Germany, at the time with only 7 hours in the BAC One-Eleven. After the takeoff, as the aircraft climbed through , both engines failed and the captain decided to make an emergency landing on a highway – "Bundesautobahn" 7 (also part of European route E45) – about from Hamburg Airport. During the landing, on the south-bound carriageway to avoid heavy traffic out of Hamburg, the aircraft deflected to the left and collided with an overpass and multiple concrete pillars, causing the right wing, cockpit, and T-tail to shear off. The rest of the fuselage broke up and skidded to a halt resting against an oak tree, and subsequently caught fire. The accident killed twenty-one passengers and one crew member.
Cause of the crash.
Subsequent investigation showed that one or two of the five tanks for the water-injection engine thrust-augmentation system (used during take-off) had inadvertently been filled with kerosene instead of with demineralised water. Spraying this additional jet fuel into the engines caused them to overheat and fail shortly after take-off. Two maintenance workers for Paninternational were sentenced to prison terms in 1974.
References.
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