| Group soc.culture.nordic
From: [email protected] (Huaan Fan)
Subject: Re: Plane Crash
Organization: The Royal Inst. of Techn., Stockholm
In <[email protected]>, Karen Kolling asked if the crown prince of
Norway was among the victims of the plane crash off Denmark To my
knowledge, the answer is probably: No ! During the last 3 days, the
Swedish mass media (TV, Radios, Newspapers) have never reported any
connection of the Norwagian crown prince to the plane crash.
According to Swedish news reports, 55 persons were killed in the tragic
crash. All victims, except airplane service personals, belong to the
Norwagian company Wilhelmsen Lines and one of them is a 35 years old
Swedish ship captain named Thomas Stenberg.
About one week ago, the Prime Minister of Norway, Mrs. Gro Brundtland
flew with the same plane which crashed on last Friday. Due to the
airplane crash, she decided to cancel most of her activities before the
election which will be held on Monday in Norway.
The crashed plane is of model Convair Metropolitan and owned by a
Norwagian airline company Partnair. It was built more than 30 years
ago. Until today the cause of the crash is still unclear. There are
speculations about bomb explosions but no technical evidence has been
found so far to confirm it.
----
Huaan Fan
Department of Geodesy
The Royal Institute of Technology
S-100 44 Stockholm, SWEDEN
Tel. 46 8 7907342
46 8 157643
E-mail: [email protected]
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| From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: clari.news.aviation,clari.news.gov.international,
clari.news.canada,clari.news.europe
Subject: Greenland airlines plane disappears with eight aboard
Keywords: international, aviation problems, trouble, non-usa government,
government
Date: 12 Sep 90 13:21:34 GMT
Location: canada, western europe
ACategory: international
Slugword: greenland-plane
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (UPI) -- A twin-engine Cessna 441 plane
carrying eight people on a Greenland airlines flight to Canada
disappeared west of Greenland and search efforts were underway
Wednesday, Danish officials said.
The twin-turboprop aircraft operated by the small Greenland airline
Nuna Air was flying from Sondre Stromfjord, Greenland to Goose Bay,
Canada when it disappeared from radar screens Tuesday, said air traffic
authority spokesman Sten Bersan. "We do not know what has happened to
it or where it is," Bersan said of the plane carrying six passengers
and two pilots. "We lost contact with it ..."
Bersan said Danish Air Force aircraft and Greenland commercial
planes were searching for the missing plane, but were hampered by bad
weather. "The weather conditions are not very good," he said. "It is
raining and there is possibility for snow. The visibility is poor."
A search for the Cessna, which can carry as many as 10 people,
started Tuesday evening, but the search planes turned around when it
became dark and returned Wednesday at dawn. "We will continue the
search as long as there is a hope of finding them alive," Bersan said.
He would not reveal the identity or nationalities of the crew and
passengers.
Word of the missing plane came a day after Canadian authorities
reported a Peruvian Boeing 727 flying from Iceland to Canada with 15
people aboard went down Tuesday in the northern Atlantic Ocean about
180 miles south of Newfoundland.
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| From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: clari.news.gov.international,clari.news.aviation,
clari.news.europe,clari.news.urgent
Subject: Most unhurt, 7 seriously injured in plane crash
Date: 27 Dec 91 12:50:46 GMT
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (UPI) -- More than 100 people escaped injury Friday
when the engines of a Warsaw-bound commercial airliner of the
Scandinavian Airlines System failed, causing the plane to crash near a
farmhouse minutes after takeoff, rescue officials said.
"It's a miracle. I was very lucky," said passenger Goran Orjats
from the scene of the crash.
"The engines stopped working and they said there was danger and to
keep calm. The plane went down slowly first, then it went down very
quickly, first hit the trees and then stopped on the field," he added,
saying some passengers left the area quickly, others remained in the
area.
The SAS aircraft, a nine-month-old, U.S.-built McDonnel Douglas DC-9
MD-80 with route number SK751, took off from Stockholm's Arlanda Airport
at 8:40 a.m. with 122 passengers and seven crew members on board and was
to have landed in Copenhagen at 9:40 a.m. before continuing to the
Polish capital.
SAS spokesman Bertil Lundqvist said there were "no fatalities" in
what appeared to have been a miraculous escape for the passengers and
crew of the twin-engine airliner.
On impact, the two wings of the aircraft broke off but the airliner
did not catch fire, despite having been fully loaded with fuel for the
trip to Poland.
Police said that seven people had been recovered "in a serious
condition" and that "more than a hundred have been rescued unharmed."
Nine passengers had received lesser injuries.
Radio Uppland, the local radio station reported, "The majority of
passengers were miraculously seen parading in one long caravan towards
the nearest house."
Police, rescue and airport officials said the first sign of trouble
came a couple of minutes after takeoff when the captain of the airliner
reported that he had engine trouble and that he would attempt to restart
his engines.
"So far, from what we know, the pilot just before the crash called
up and said he had de-ice problems and he was trying to restart the
engines. And then he went down ..." said police spokesman Keld Edman in
a broadcast interview.
Swedish television said in a report that the attempt to restart the
engines failed, the captain reported "I am going to crash land" and
the aircraft came down 12 miles from Arlanda Airport.
"You might call it a real rough landing because it was broken into
three parts," Edman said.
Apart from the wings having broken off, the plane fuselage broke into
three pieces on the snow and ice-covered field.
The nationalities of all those on board were not immediately
available.
A special SAS Crash Team was making its way to the site Friday to try
to determine the cause of the engine failure.
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The latest updates to the preceding crash report are gleaned
from the Danish press:
1) The Swedish Crash Commission seems to believe that the crash
resulted from ice shearing off the wings and getting sucked
into the motors. Both motors died shortly after takeoff.
An SAS mechanic did not check the wings with his bare hands
to see if the 2 consecutive de-icings had been sufficient.
This bare-hands check is apparently in the manual.
2) American Airlines reports that the MD-80 series has big
problems with ice forming on the wings near the fuselage.
This due to poor placement of the central fuel tanks.
3) The Danish pilot lost power at an altitude of 1 km with
zero visibility. All the electronics failed. Smoke started
to fill the cabin and cockpit. The pilot used a mechanical
gyroscope to steer the plane and keep it level until
he came out from beneath the cloud layer.
4) The field he landed in was one he had noted previously as
a possible crash site should an emergency occur. This
was apparently an old habit he had picked up flying for
the Royal Danish Air Force. He was able to avoid hitting 2 farm
houses that lay at the edge of the field.
5) The pilot used the tree tops to slow the plane's speed before
he bellied onto the field. His speed at landing was
estimated at 250 km/hr. A thin layer of snow may have helped
hinder sparks that might have ignited the full load of fuel.
The fuselage broke into 3 parts on impact.
6) No one was killed. Eight were seriously injured, but none
critically. Almost everyone walked away from the crash by
themselves.
7) One of the farmers at the crash site was woken up by a man
at the door, dressed in a business suit, who explained that
there had been a plane crash and that he wanted to loan a phone.
The farmer ended up having almost 100 passengers crammed into his
house to escape the cold while they waited for the rescue
crews to arrive. (It took 30 min. for the fire and rescue
workers to reach the crash site 20 km north of the airport.)
A real Christmas miracle brought about by an incredibly skilled Danish
pilot and well-trained Swedish crew.
Cheers,
Geoff
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