Draft:1953 Canadian Pacific Airlines de Havilland Comet crash
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On March 3, 1953, a De Havilland DH-106 Comet crashed on takeoff from Karachi, Pakistan while on a delivery flight. All eleven passengers/crew were killed.
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Last edited by Electronic gel (talk | contribs) 56 days ago. (Update) |
- PAF Base Masroor, Pakistan
 CF-CUM, sistership to the aircraft involved in the accident | |
| Accident | |
|---|---|
| Date | 3 March 1953 |
| Summary | Runway excursion |
| Site |
|
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | de Havilland DH-106 Comet 1A |
| Aircraft name | Empress of Hawaii |
| Operator | Canadian Pacific Air Lines |
| Registration | CF-CUN |
| Flight origin | London Airoport, United Kingdom |
| 1st stopover | Rome Ciampino Airport, Italy |
| 2nd stopover | Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport, Lebanon |
| 3rd stopover | PAF Base Masroor, Pakistan |
| 4th stopover | Yangon International Airport, Burma (now Myanmar) |
| 5th stopover | Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, Indonesia |
| Last stopover | Darwin International Airport, Australia |
| Destination | Sydney Airport, Australia |
| Occupants | 11 |
| Passengers | 6 |
| Crew | 5 |
| Fatalities | 11 |
| Survivors | 0 |
Background
Aircraft
The aircraft was a de Havilland DH-106 Comet 1A with the work number 06014, whose first flight was on 24 December 1952 with the test registration G-ALSB. On 2 March 1953, the aircraft was registered with the aircraft registration number CF-CUN on Canadian Pacific Airlines and was christened Empress of Hawaii. On the same day it left for its delivery flight. Canadian Pacific Airlines on 28 April 1953, the aircraft was to be delivered to Sydney. The four-engined long-haul aircraft was equipped with four jet engines of the type de Havilland Ghost 50-2.
Occupants
There was an eleven crew on board, consisting of a crew of five and six technicians from De Havilland. The flight crew had completed training in the United Kingdom to fly the Comet and was still inexperienced in the operation of this type of aircraft when they started the transfer flight to Australia. None of the pilots had made a night start with the jet and the pilots had never flown a heavily loaded Comet. The start in Karachi was supposed to be the first night start ever for the pilots.
Accident
When the captain accelerated the machine to a speed of over 85 knots during takeoff at 03:35 local time, he lifted the boewheel. He should have kept the aircraft nose down during take-off until the bowwheel rose just above the runway. Instead, he continued to accelerate the aircraft with the bow landing gear upright, with the main landing gear not taking off. In this position, the air resistance on the wings increased, causing the aircraft to accelerate more slowly than necessary. Towards the end of the runway, the pilot lowered his nose, but the remaining runway length was no longer sufficient to reach the rotation speed. The plane rolled over the end of the runway, broke through the airport fence and a wheel of the main landing gear on the side of the starboard collided with the passage of a surrounding drainage trench. The aircraft skidded and plunged into a dried-up channel. At a speed of more than 138 miles per hour, the aircraft crashed into the twelve-meter-high slope on the other side of the canal and burned out. All 11 occupants died.
Cause
The accident investigation showed that the accident was caused by the aircraft's nose being raised too high during take-off, which led to a partial flow break and excessive air resistance. This did not allow normal acceleration and prevented the aircraft from taking off within the available runway length. The captain recognized the problem too late and took corrective measures too late, so that the plane could not be prevented from colliding with an obstacle immediately behind the boundary fence. The contributing cause was that the captain, who had limited experience with the Comet aircraft, decided to take off at night. The circumstances required strict adherence to the prescribed procedures for the start, but they were not adhered to.