
June 1968 to August 1968
British Eagle International Airlines Ltd
G-ATFN - c/n 394 - a V.739A series Viscount
United Kingdom registered
June 1968
Returned from Air France lease.
9 August 1968
Crashed onto an autobahn near Langenbruck, north of Munich, West Germany. Captain John Dawdy, 3 other crew members and all 44 passengers on board sadly died in the crash.
Total time 18,6560 hours and 10,781 total landings.
The flight had departed from Heathrow Airport, London, England at 11:37 local time on a scheduled service to Kranebitten Airport, Innsbruck, Austria and had just passed the 'Mike' NDB near Munich, West Germany at FL210 (21,000 feet). Shortly after this Munich air traffic control cleared the aircraft to descend to FL 120 (12,000 feet) but there was no response from the cockpit crew. The aircraft crashed onto the Nüremberg to Munich autobahn near Langenbruck in a slightly nose down attitude with the wings level.
PROBABLE CAUSE: "The accident is attributable to the fact that the aircraft's electrical power supply failed in cruising flight - possibly without the generator warning lights illuminating or illuminating distinctly, which meant that during the subsequent descent, which had to be carried out by instruments only because of the weather, the vital instruments for indicating the flight attitude showed increasingly incorrect readings and failed completely after the gyros had toppled over.
Under these IFR conditions it was unavoidable for the aircraft to enter into an uncontrolled flight attitude.
It was not possible to determine with certainty the cause of the failure of the electrical system. It may be assumed, however, that a fault occurred in the DC generator control circuit.
(Ref UK Accident Report HMSO CAP 354)
9 August 1968
Registration cancelled as aircraft destroyed.
As a result of this accident all UK registered Viscounts were fitted with a standby battery powered artificial horizon on a mandatory basis.
9 and 10 August 1968 BRITISH PATHE FILM ARCHIVE
British Eagle International Airlines Ltd Viscount c/n 394 G-ATFN crashed on to an autobahn near Langenbruck, north of Munich, West Germany.
British Pathe news item
WARNING: The material in this second film contains some shocking unissued and unused images taken 9 & 10 August 1968.
Unissued and unused material
FURTHER READING - Air Disaster by Macarthur Job
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