Synopsis
"Scandinavian Airlines Flight 751 was a regularly scheduled Scandinavian Airlines flight from Stockholm, Sweden to Copenhagen, Denmark and Warsaw, Poland that crashed on 27 December 1991. The McDonnell Douglas MD-81 was piloted by Danish captain Stefan G. Rasmussen and Swedish first officer Ulf Cedermark. Ice had collected on the wings prior to take off, which broke off and was sucked into the engines when the aircraft became airborne. After losing both engines, the pilots were forced to make an emergency landing in a field near Gottröra, Sweden. " (Wikipedia, 20115).
Twenty five seconds after take off, there was noise and vibrations from the engine two. The flight crew attempted to decrease the aircraft speed but the throttle changed to automatic mode with increased throttle setting with altitude (Automatic Thrust Restoration - ATR). Thirty nine seconds later, engine one surged but was left unnoticed by the flight crew. Both engines failed at 76 and 78 seconds after take off as the stage 1 stators of both engines broke, resulting from the high loads from the surges. The aircraft hit trees before landing, breaking a large part of the right hand wing. It landed tail-first on a sloping ground and broke into three parts during the emergency crash landing. A total of twenty five passengers were injured.
Findings
The main cause of the crash was loose ice that entered both engines of the aircraft, damaging the engine fan stages that led to engine surges. SAS's instructions and routines were inadequate to ensure that clear ice is completely removed before take off. After de-icing of the aircraft with Type I fluid, the maintenance crew failed to perform a post deicing check to confirm that all ice had been removed. The ice had formed overnight on the upper side of the wing as temperature dropped to below zero degrees celsius. The contributory cause was that pilots were not trained to identify and eliminate engine surging. Maintenance procedures on de-icing in airports and airlines that are operating in cold regions had been evaluated and modified to prevent the same incident from reoccuring.
Accident video
Part 1 of 4
| (Video embedded from YouTube on 6 October 2011- see Cineflix, undated- a1) |
Part 2 of 4
| (Video embedded from YouTube on 6 October 2011- see Cineflix, undated- b2) |
Part 3 of 4
| (Video embedded from YouTube on 6 October 2011- see Cineflix, undated- c3) |
Part 4 of 4
| (Video embedded from YouTube on 6 October 2011- see Cineflix, undated- d4) |
Want to know more?
- Scandinavian Airlines flight 751
- This Wikipedia page provides more details about this occurrence.
