User:Yngvadottir/East African Airways Flight 720

The accident aircraft at London Heathrow, March 1967
Accident
Summary	Runway overrun on takeoff followed by aircraft breakup and fire
Site	Haile Selassie I International Airport, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Super VC10 Type 1154
Operator	East African Airways
Registration	5X-UVA
Flight origin	Embakasi Airport, Nairobi, South Africa
Stopover	Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Destination	Rome, Italy
Passengers	96
Crew	11
Fatalities	43 (35 passengers, 8 crew)
Injuries	15 (13 passengers, 2 crew)
Survivors	64 (61 passengers, 3 crew)

East African Airways Flight 720, a scheduled passenger service from Nairobi to London via Addis Ababa and Rome, crashed on takeoff at Haile Selassie I International Airport (now Bole International Airport) on 18 April 1972. 43 people were killed, many of them children. It was at the time the worst aircraft accident in Ethiopia. The major cause of the accident was found to be incorrect maintenance of the aircraft, a Super VC10 Type 1154.

Aircraft and background

The aircraft flying Flight 720 on 18 April 1972 was a Super VC10, registration 5X-UVA, the first of five built for East African Airways. It had made its maiden flight on 3 September 1966, had 18,586 hours in the air and had last been inspected on 9 March 1972. The captain was J. P. Vale, aged 42 and with 8,769 flying hours, 752 on the Super VC10, as of 28 October 1971; the first officer, who was probably piloting the aircraft during the takeoff, was R. P. H. Botto, aged 26, who had 2,744 flying hours, 640 on the Super VC10, as of 12 January 1972. Both were killed. The plane departed Embakasi Airport (now Jomo Kenyatta International Airport) in Nairobi at 06:55 and landed in Addis Ababa at 08:23. It was scheduled to fly a second leg to Rome Fiumicino and a final leg to London. At Addis Ababa, 40 passengers disembarked, freight was unloaded, and the plane was refuelled; 15 passengers joined the flight. Many passengers were British children returning to boarding schools in the UK after the Easter holidays.

Accident

At 09:21 start-up clearance was given; at 09:27 the aircraft taxied out. It was cleared for takeoff at 09:38 after dead birds had been removed from the runway at the pilot's request. During takeoff, approximately halfway down the runway and shortly before reaching V1, the nose wheel ran over a steel jacking pad which had fallen onto the runway from a Cessna 185 aircraft, puncturing the right nose-wheel tyre and causing strong vibration and according to a brief statement made by the flight engineer before he died, some loss of control. The plane's nose rose briefly and fell; the crew decided to abort the takeoff. They throttled back the engines and applied reverse thrust. The plane continued down the runway, veering slightly to the right, and the number one rear main tyre burst. The aircraft failed to stop before the end of the runway; it veered slightly to the left, crossed a drain, became briefly airborne as it left an embankment, and the left wing struck an approach lighting tower whose top was level with the end of the runway, rupturing a fuel tank. The fuel ignited; 60 metres (200 ft) past the runway's end, the plane fell into a gully 10.59 metres (34.7 ft) below runway level, breaking into three sections, sliding further down the slope, and catching fire; all but the tail section and part of the right wing were destroyed by the fire. The fire crew who had removed the birds from the runway radioed for assistance at 09:40 upon witnessing the accident.

Aftermath and casualties

Thirty-five of the 96 passengers and 8 of the 11 crew died. Forty died immediately; many occupants were able to escape through a hole in the forward fuselage, the exits being blocked, but some fatalities and injuries were due to a barbed-wire fence preventing escape upwards away from burning fuel that collected in the ditch, while others died after staying to render assistance. Some severely burnt passengers were airlifted to the UK by the RAF via Acrotiria on the night of 20–21 April; two died on the first leg of this flight, one girl died in hospital after arrival. It was at the time the worst aircraft accident in Ethiopia; it is now the third worst, the deadliest being the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in 2019.

Analysis of cause

Repairs had been carried out to components of the aircraft's braking system after incidents on 5 April and 7 April 1972. Maintenance procedures did not include service testing after such repairs. No mechanical defects were found in the aircraft after the crash except in the brakes; 3 of the 8 had not performed adequately during the emergency braking, and this was found to have been caused by serious errors in the repairs, one of which had led to the rear tyre burst. The accident was held to have been caused by these maintenance errors, which had rendered the brakes incapable of bringing the aircraft to a stop before the end of the runway. It was calculated that the plane would have stopped within the available space if the brakes had been fully serviceable.

References

Category:Accidents and incidents involving the Vickers VC10 Category:Aviation accidents and incidents in 1972 Category:Aviation accidents and incidents in Ethiopia