Convair 340 aircrash

[Puk]

Earlier this week a Convair 340 (ZS-BRV) that was acquired by the Aviodrome in Lelystad, crashed during take-off at Wonderboom airport, Pretoria, South-Africa, killing one and injured 20 persons. It was supposed to depart Wonderboom this Thursday, bound for Lelystad, Holland (arriving on July 23).

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6744450/p ... onderboom/

https://twitter.com/firstgroup_FRT/stat ... 6763983873

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Rovos-Ai ... 40/2586408

Sadly it will never fly again.

As a tribute to the victims and to a lost oldie I decided to undertake the yourney to Lelystad with one of the first aircrafts Martin's Air Charter started it's airline: the Dove & Devon DH.104: PH-MAD







Puk

[Dogsbody55]

I've read on the Sim Outhouse forum that the crew did not run up the engines before take off which means insufficient engine checks, and that this was the first flight for the plane after significant work. Why would you put 20 people on board an untested plane and not check the engines before take off?? Apparently, they took off with a flight engineer assisting, and Convairs didn't have flight engineers, and it was this person who was killed aboard the plane so I wonder where he sat and was he strapped in.

If the above is true, then it appears that this was a crash that could easily have avoided. I can only express my condolences to the families of those killed and hope that the injured recover quickly.


Mike

[CAPFlyer]

Yes, there are many problems with this accident and how it was conducted. Unfortunately, it ended with not only the "Flight Engineer" being killed, but a person on the ground as well who passed after being hit by debris.

As for the "Flight Engineer", he would have been seated in the jumpseat. That location does have sufficient reach to get to most of the controls during takeoff, but whether he had his belt fastened or not, it is a fairly tight location being in the "hallway" surrounded on both sides by the radio racks. This video of a Nolinor 580 on takeoff from the jumpseat shows well the location - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIYC2tc-zx0