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." |