Follow the investigation of the controversial crash of an El Al 747 into a high-rise Amsterdam apartment complex.
On 4 October 1992, El Al Flight 1862, a Boeing 747 cargo aircraft of the then state-owned Israeli airline El Al, crashed into the Groeneveen and Klein-Kruitberg flats in the Bijlmermeer (colloquially "Bijlmer") neighbourhood (part of Amsterdam-Zuidoost) of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The crash is known in Dutch as the Bijlmerramp (Bijlmer disaster).
In all, 43 people were officially reported as killed, including all of the aircraft's three crew members, a nonrevenue passenger in a jump seat, and 39people on the ground.In addition to these fatalities, 11 people were seriously injured and 15 people received minor injuries.The exact number of people killed on the ground is disputed, as the building housed many undocumented immigrants. The crash is the deadliest aviation disaster to occur in the Netherlands.
Causes
In the event of excessive loads on the Boeing 747 engines or engine pylons, the fuse pins holding the engine nacelle to the wing are designed to fracture cleanly, allowing the engine to separate from the aircraft without damaging the wing or wing fuel tank. Airliners are generally designed to remain airworthy in the event of an engine failure or separation, so they can be landed safely. Damage to a wing or wing fuel tank can have disastrous consequences. The Netherlands Aviation Safety Board found that the fuse pins had not failed properly, but instead had fatigue cracks prior to overload failure. The board pieced together a probable sequence of events for the loss of engine three:
Gradual failure by fatigue and then overload failure of the inboard midspar fuse pin at the inboard thin-walled location
Overload failure of the outer lug of the inboard midspar pylon fitting
Overload failure of the outboard midspar fuse pin at the outboard thin-walled and fatigue-cracked location
Overload failure of the outboard midspar fuse pin at the inboard thin-walled location[3]: 46
This sequence of consecutive failures caused the inboard engine and pylon to break free. Its trajectory after breaking off the wing caused it to slam into the outboard engine and rip it and its pylon off the wing. Serious damage was also caused to the leading edge of the right wing.[9] Both loss of hydraulic power and damage to the right wing prevented correct operation of the flaps that the crew later tried to extend in flight.
Research indicated that the crew were able to keep the aircraft in the air at first due to its high air speed (280 knots), though the damage to the right wing, resulting in reduced lift, had made keeping level more difficult. At 280 kn (520 km/h; 320 mph), nevertheless, lift on the right wing was sufficient to keep the aircraft aloft. Once it had to reduce speed for landing, the amount of lift on the right wing was insufficient to enable stable flight, so a safe landing would have been very difficult to achieve. The aircraft then banked sharply to the right with very little chance of recovery.
The official probable causes were determined to be
The design and certification of the Boeing-747 pylon was found to be inadequate to provide the required level of safety. Furthermore the system to ensure structural integrity by inspection failed. This ultimately caused – probably initiated by fatigue in the inboard midspar fuse-pin – the no. 3 pylon and engine to separate from the wing in such a way that the no. 4 pylon and engine were torn off, part of the leading edge of the wing was damaged and the use of several systems was lost or limited. This subsequently left the flight crew with very limited control of the airplane. Because of the marginal controllability a safe landing became highly improbable, if not virtually impossible.
Cargo
Soon after the disaster, it was announced that the aircraft had contained fruit, perfumes, and computer components. Dutch Minister Hanja Maij-Weggen asserted that she was certain that it contained no military cargo.
The survivors' health complaints following the crash increased the number of questions about the cargo. In 1998, El Al spokesman Nachman Klieman publicly revealed that 190L of dimethyl methylphosphonate, a CWC schedule 2 chemical, had been included in the cargo. The chemical's primary commercial use is as a flame retardant. Other commercial uses are a preignition additive for gasoline, anti-foaming agent, plasticizer, stabilizer, textile conditioner, antistatic agent, an additive for solvents & low-temperature hydraulic fluids, and as a catalyst/ reagent in organic synthesis of Sarin & Soman nerve gases. The State of Israel noted that the chemical had been listed on the cargo manifest in accordance with international regulations, the material was nontoxic, and its intended use was to test the filters of Chemical Weapons detectors. The Dutch foreign ministry confirmed that it had already known about the presence of chemicals on the aircraft. The shipment was from a US chemical plant to the Israel Institute for Biological Research under a US Department of Commerce license. According to the chemical weapons site CWInfo, the quantity involved was "too small for the preparation of a militarily useful quantity of Sarin, but would be consistent with making small quantities for testing detection methods and protective clothing.
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