NLM CityHopper Flight 431
Aircraft and crew
The aircraft involved in the accident was a Fokker F28-4000, registration PH-CHI, that was built in 1979 with c/n 11141. At the time of the accident, the airframe had accumulated 4,485 flight hours and 5,997 cycles.
The captain was 33-year-old Jozef Werner, who had been with NLM CityHopper for nearly 11 years. He had 4,900 flight hours, including 309 hours on the Fokker F28. The first officer was 28-year-old Hendrik Schoorl, who had been with the airline for three years and had 2,971 flight hours, with 2,688 of them on the Fokker F28.
Description of the accident
During the weather briefing 44 minutes before takeoff, the crew was apprised to an area of strong thunderstorms with 3/8 (37.5%) sky coverage of cumulonimbus at a base of 1,200 feet (370 m), south-southwest winds 15 to 25 knots (28 to 46 km/h; 17 to 29 mph) strong, and 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) visibility at Rotterdam Airport (IATA: RTM). The aircraft took off at 17:04 CET (UTC +1) from RTM. The crew noted heavy rain in thunderstorms on the airplane's weather avoidance radar at 17:09, receiving clearance to avoid the area. At 17:12 the aircraft entered a tornado while flying through clouds. The weather system the aircraft entered into was apparently the same "tornado-like" system that Zeeland locals described as being responsible for considerable property damage. Meteorologically, these vortices are indeed tornadoes, and the disintegrating airliner was seen exiting cloud cover. A police officer first photographed the tornado, then smoke from the burning plane a few minutes later. An investigation concluded that a sharp increase in altitude registered on the altimeter was not a change in altitude, rather a pressure drop associated with the tornado.
Stresses experienced by the airframe owing to severe turbulence resulted in loads of +6.8 g and −3.2 g causing the starboard wing to detach. The aircraft was designed for a maximum G-load of up to 4 g. The aircraft spun down into the ground from 3,000 ft (910 m), crashing some 400 m (1,300 ft) from a Shell chemical plant on the southeastern outskirts of Moerdijk. All 17 occupants of the aircraft perished in the accident. While observing the unfolding incident from the ground, a firefighter suffered a fatal cardiac arrest.
See also
References
- ^
- Learmount, David (23 January 1982). "Commercial flight safety: 1981 reviewed". Flight International. 121 (3794): 183. ISSN 0015-3710. Archived from the original on 22 January 2015.
- "Commercial flight safety: 1981 reviewed". Flight International: 184. Archived from the original on 22 January 2015.
- "Commercial flight safety: 1981 reviewed". Flight International: 185. Archived from the original on 22 January 2015.
- "Commercial flight safety: 1981 reviewed". Flight International: 186. Archived from the original on 22 January 2015.
- ^ Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved on 14 November 2011.
- ^ van Tuyl, Johan. "F.28 Fellowship verongelukt bij Moerdijk" [F.28 Fellowship crash at Moerdijk]. AVIACRASH.NL (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 19 May 2006. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
- ^ "F.28 crashes in bad weather". Flight International: 1127. 17 October 1981. Archived from the original on 7 April 2014.
- ^ Grazulis, Thomas P. (2001). The Tornado: Nature's Ultimate Windstorm. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 260–1. ISBN 0-8061-3258-2.
- ^ Roach, W.T.; J. Findlater (February 1983). "An Aircraft Encounter with a Tornado". Meteorological Magazine. 112 (1327). London: Meteorological Office: 29–49.
- ^ "6 oktober 1981: Vliegtuigcrash Moerdijk" [October 6, 1981: Moerdijk plane crash]. ww5.zero-meridean.nl (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 14 January 2008. Retrieved 2 February 2021.
- ^ "F.28 wing loss followed severe turbulence". Flight International: 1124. 17 October 1981. Archived from the original on 28 July 2014.
External links
