Serial #15 Type CL-44D4-2

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Registration Date Event Operator Remarks
N446T 24.01.1962 First flight Canadair Ltd.
N446T 28.02.1962 Delivery Flying Tiger Line
N446T 01.12.1968 New owner Conroy Aircraft Co. Aircraft bought for conversion to "O" standard. (Guppy)
N446T 01.02.1969 Leased Mobile Oil Aircraft used to fly the North Slope
N446T 01.05.1969 Written off Mobile Oil Crashed upon landing in Anchorage, Alaska

The Anchorage Accident 1st May 1969
N446Tīs undercarriage collapsed after heavy landing, the plane cart-wheeled and caught fire. All 4 crew survived. Later the NTSB wrote: "The main cause for the accident can be seen in the fact that the co-pilot did not level off correctly and that supervision by the captain was inadequate.
Though this accident was regarded as pilot error it should be mentioned that the Accident in Norfolk Virginia was identical. After these accidents operators developed special landing techniques, such as keeping power on the inboard engines to keep airflow over the elevators.
(See technical section)
From the Book "Runway" by John Godson c1973...It was on 1May 1969 when a CL-44 owned by the Mobil Oil Company crashed at Anchorage Airport. The aircraft was scheduled as Mobile Flight 109 and was engaged in transporting fuel to an oil-drilling site on the Alaskan arctic coastline.
...When Captain Talford Bray and his crew arrived , the last of the twenty-seven 250- gallon tanks in the body of the aircraft was being filled. The crew rapidly filed the flight plan with the airport controllers and checked on the enroute weather conditions. They returned to their CL-44, started up the engines, and departed. After landing at West Kaparukat about 5.00 a.m.. and waiting around until the fuel was off-loaded (which took about an hour) the crew returned to their positions in the cockpit and took off for the return flight to Anchorage. At 8.10 a.m., clearence was given to land on Runway 6L and about a minute later the wheels touched down. At this very instant, the right hand undercarriage beam bogie snapped, the right wing came down on the runway, the two right engine propellers slashed their way into the runway surface and finally the plane swerved to the right onto the grass, snapping off the right wing.
Fire had broken out before the plane had run off the runway. Witnesses estimated that it broke out at the same time as the right wing failed. Soon, the whole of the aircraft was envelopped in flames, and it was a miracle that the co-pilot and the engineer escaped with only minor injuries, though the pilot and a mobil fuel-loader suffered serious injuries including burns."