El Al Flight 1862

El Al Flight 1862 was an aviation accident that took place on October 4, 1992 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. A Boeing 747 cargo plane from the El Al company, from New York, made a stopover at Amsterdam-Schiphol airport to load fuel in its tanks and carry out various operations on the ground. After this technical stop, its flight was scheduled to continue its journey to Tel Aviv, but a few minutes after taking off, it lost both right wing engines, becoming uncontrollable and crashing in an Amsterdam neighborhood called Bijlmermeer. For this reason, the accident is also known as the Bijlmer disaster.

Incident

On October 4, 1992, a Boeing 747-258F cargo plane with registration 4X-AXG was making a flight from New York to Tel Aviv with a stopover at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. During the trip between New York and Amsterdam, at least three incidents were detected: fluctuations in the speed set by the autopilot, problems with the shortwave radio and fluctuations in the voltage of engine number 3. It finally landed at Schiphol at 2:31 p. m. local time. On the ground, the plane was refueled, the incidents were temporarily resolved in accordance with the manual and new packages were also loaded.

The plane, scheduled to take off at 5:30 p.m. m., finally leaving no clue until 6:22 p.m. m. He immediately headed down the appropriate route, gaining altitude. After making a turn, while flying over Lake Gooimeer gaining altitude to 6,500 feet, a loud thud was heard from inside the cabin. Engine number 3, located on the right wing, had separated from the plane, damaging the high-lift devices and hitting engine number 4, which also detached. The captain made a mayday call to the airport indicating that they had no power in engines number 3 and 4 (they did not know that said engines had detached because they had no visibility of the wing).

The crew decided to make an emergency landing, for which they requested runway number 27 of the airport. The weather conditions on said runway indicated that the plane would have a tailwind, that is, it would enter from behind, affecting the lift of the aircraft and, therefore, making the maneuver difficult. For the approach, two descent circles were made. In the second, the captain of the plane orders the aircraft's hyperlift devices to be extended, but both the exit hyperlift devices (flaps) and those on the leading edge (slats) of the right wing did not work because they had been damaged during the detachment of the aircraft. engines. With this configuration, as they lost speed, due to the asymmetric effect of the flaps, the difference in lift provided by the left wing versus the right wing increased. This caused the plane to have a tendency to roll to the right, an effect that was more pronounced because, to maintain the speed of the aircraft, more power was supplied to engines 1 and 2, while the effects of the crew to counteract it were seen. diminished because the right ailerons were inoperative. The plane continued to roll until it reached 90° from the horizontal, a critical moment at which the first officer on board sent a message to ATC that they were going down. Finally, at 6:35 p.m. m. local time, the Boeing 747 directly hit a block of flats in Bijlmermeer, a neighborhood in Amsterdam, killing 39 residents, three crew members and the flight's only passenger.

Final conversation

The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) was never recovered. The latest communications with air traffic control (ATC) are transcribed below.

• 19:28:09 El Al 1862: El Al 1862, mayday, mayday, we have an emergency.
• 19:28 AM CONTROLADOR: The 1862, all right. Dismiss, KM237, turning left towards 090.
• 19:28:06 CONTROLER: The 1862, will you return to Schiphol?
• 19:28:09 El Al 1862: Affirmative, mayday, mayday, mayday.
• 19:28:11 CONTROLER: Turn right about two six zeros, do you have a field... behind you, eh... in the southwest, eh... one with eight miles away.
• 19:28:17 The Al 1862: All right, we have fire in engine number three, we have fire in engine number three.
• 19:28:22 CONTROLER: All right, be in two seven zeros for the wind.
• 19:28:24 The Al 1862: Two seven zero for the wind.
• 19:28:31 CONTROLADOR: Wind of 21 knots of speed on the surface 040.
• 19:28:35 The Al 1862: All right.
• 19:28:45 The Al 1862: The Al, one eight six two, we have lost engine number three and number four, number three and number four.
• 19:28:50 CONTROLER: Okay, one eight six two.
• 19:31:41 The Al 1862: The Al, one eight six two, we lose altitude.
• 19:32:12 The Al 1862: The Al, one eight six two, the plane is decorated.
• 19:34:58 A CONTROLER: The Al, one eight six two, go on down to a thousand five hundred feet.
• 19:35:03 The Al 1862: A thousand five hundred and we have a control problem.
• 19:35:06 CONTROLER: You have a control problem, not so, Roger.
• 19:35:25 The Al 1862: Falling... uh... one eight six two, falling, falling, falling (to the bottom is heard in Hebrew: up all the flaps, all the flaps above, down the landing gear).

Crew

The crew consisted of three people: the captain, the first officer and the flight engineer. They all had extensive experience in their field.

Captain

• Name: Yitzhak Fuchs
• Date of birth: January 21, 1933.
• Nationality: Israel
• Profession: Transport pilot contracted by EI AI since August 2, 1964.
• Last medical review: 7 June 1992. You must wear glasses during your work. License valid until 31 January 1993.
• License: Israel ATPL number 340. Granted September 20, 1960. Last revision on 11 April 1992. Group certificate A+C, Boeing 707, Boeing 747 and aircraft instruments.
• Flight experience: 25 000 hours.
• Experience in Boeing 747: 9500 hours, of which 233 for the last 3 months.

First Officer

• Name: Arnon Ohad
• Date of birth: 7 May 1960.
• Nationality: Israel
• Profession: Transport pilot contracted by EI AI since 17 November 1991.
• Last medical review: 20 June 1992. License valid until 20 June 1993.
• License: Israel ATPL number 2844. Granted on 4 November 1987. Last revision on 25 July 1992. Group certificate A+B+C, Boeing 707,1A-1124,ARAVA 101,C12D, Boeing 747 and aircraft instruments.
• Flight experience: 4288 hours.
• Experience in Boeing 747: 612 hours, of which 151 for the last 3 months.

Flight engineer

• Name: Gedalya Sofer
• Date of birth: May 23, 1931.
• Nationality: Israel
• Profession: Flight engineer hired by EI AI since June 1955.
• Last medical review: 25 August 1992. You must wear corrective glasses during the exercise of your profession. License valid until 28 August 1993.
• License: Israeli flight engineer license number 82. Granted in 1954. Last revision on 23 May 1992. Certificate in turboreactors Boeing 747 and Boeing 707.
• Flight experience: 26,000 hours.
• Experience in Boeing 747: 15,000 hours, of which 222 for the last 3 months.

Airplane

• Airplane: Boeing 747-258F
• Manufacturer: Boeing Company
• Year of construction: 1979
• Scope: 59.64 m
• Long: 70.66 m
• Stop: 19,33 m
• Cruise speed: 907 km/h
• Maximum speed: 981 km/h
• Flight board: 13 715 m
• Scope: 12 778 km
• Engines: 4 Pratt & Whitney JT9D-7 J
• Useful charge at the time of the accident: 112 490 kg
• Cumulative flight hours: 45 746 hours
• Cumulative flight cycles: 10 107 cycles

The plane had successfully passed all the required inspections and had incorporated all the current Airworthiness Directives (ADs) on time. For its part, pylon number 3 had been overhauled on June 17, 1992, and since then it had accumulated 257 flight cycles.

Load

Although at first it was stated that the plane's cargo was flowers and vegetables, the plane was actually transporting various weapons related to the military agreements maintained by the American and Israeli governments. Among other things, it carried explosives, ammunition and spare parts for AIM-9 missiles. But it also transported highly dangerous materials, such as depleted uranium and dimethyl methylphosphonate. Dimethyl methylphosphonate is not classified as toxic, but causes harm when inhaled, drunk, or absorbed through the skin; It is a component that can be used to manufacture Sarin gas. This gas was to be received by the Israeli Institute for Biological Research, imported under license from the United States Department of Commerce. The Israeli Government always denied that the cargo was dangerous, since it alleged that these materials were going to be used mainly to carry out tests in the development of defensive filters against chemical threats.

The data on the plane's actual load was not officially announced until 1998, endangering the lives of the rescue teams at the time of the accident. However, Dutch authorities confirmed that they were aware of the actual cargo being transported.

Deceased

The number of victims was initially estimated between 100 and 200; In the end there were 43, thanks to the fact that the plane was a cargo plane and that most of the residents had not arrived home at the time of the accident. It has been speculated that the number of victims could be higher, because it was thought that the building was also inhabited by unregistered illegal residents whose bodies could have been completely burned due to the fact that temperatures were reached with the combustion of kerosene and the charging of the device. on the order of 1100°C (2010°F). However, a government investigation concluded that the number of bodies found in the rubble more or less matched the number of missing people, so there was no reason to suspect that the victims had been more than 43 people.

The nationalities of the 4 people on the plane and 39 people on the ground at Bijlmermeer included 11 different countries:

Nationality	Triple	Passengers	Earth	Total
IsraelIsrael	3	1	0	4
NetherlandsNetherlands	0	0	12	12
ArubaAruba	0	0	10	10
CuracaoCuracao	0	0	4	4
SurinameSuriname	0	0	4	4
GhanaGhana	0	0	3	3
PakistanPakistan	0	0	2	2
India	0	0	1	1
NigeriaNigeria	0	0	1	1
Dominican RepublicDominican Republic	0	0	1	1
Romania Romania	0	0	1	1
Total	3	1	39	43

Wounded and affected

A year after the incident, many of the people who were in some way in contact with the tragedy (relatives, neighbors, rescue teams...) had suffered after-effects that required the attention of a psychologist, combined with other ailments. physical. The most frequent symptoms were: respiratory ailments, impotence, insomnia, stomach problems and general pain or discomfort. 67% of those affected were affected with Mycoplasma and suffered from ailments similar to those of Gulf War syndrome or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Dutch officials from the government departments of transport and public health stated that at the time of the accident the plane's cargo did not pose a health risk. Els Borst, Minister of Public Health, stated that geen extreem giftige, zeer gevaarlijke of radioactieve stoffen ("no very toxic, very dangerous or radioactive material") was on board the plane. However, in October 1993, the nuclear energy research Laka Foundation reported that the plane's tail contained 282 kilograms (620 lb) of depleted uranium to balance the plane's center of gravity, like all aircraft. Boeing 747 at the time, a fact that was not known during the rescue and recovery of the wreckage of the plane.

The pylon

The pylon is the structure that holds the engine to the wing anchor points. The pylon of the Boeing 747-258F is attached to the wing by four anchors: one front, one rear and two in the middle. As the front and rear anchor points have an extension arm, there are a total of six attachment points with pins, also called fuse pin. The fuse pin are designed so that in the event that the engine suffers excessive loading, such as a forced landing, the structure fails in them. This would, in theory, ensure that the engine detached safely from the wing without damaging the rest of the structure. In our case, this did not happen because the pylon detached, causing serious damage to the rest of the wing. The type of coupling consists of a female lug and a male lug, through which the pin that resists shear stress is passed.

Research

From the beginning the official authorities ruled out the hypothesis of a terrorist attack, among other reasons because the plane's failures were reported by the pilots when the device was still flying. If it had been an attack, it would most likely have been that the plane would have been destroyed in the air. The first step was the recovery of the remains of engines 3 and 4, which had detached and fallen into Lake Gooimeer. By that time it was already known that the cause of the accident was the detachment of these two engines, so the next step was to examine them in the laboratory. After a superficial analysis of the engines and pylons, it was discovered that engine 3 had detached and subsequently violently impacted engine 4. The structure of pylon 4 failed. due to overload at the time of impact. Now it remained to find out the reasons why the structure of pylon 3 had failed. The main lines of research were:

1. The front anchor (upper link) failed first.
2. The medium anchor on the side of the fuselage (inboard midspar fitting/pin) failed first.
3. The medium anchor on the opposite side of the fuselage (outboard midspar fitting/pin) failed first.
4. Simultaneous failure of the two medium anchors.
5. The rear anchor (diagonal brace) failed first.
6. Static overload.
7. Bird impact.
8. Engine internal failure.
9. The arm of the medium anchor (steel brace) failed first.

However, hypotheses 4 to 9 were immediately rejected:

• The simultaneous failure of the two medium anchors could only have occurred with a high lateral load, hypothesis that rejected the first investigations.
• The examination of the rear anchor indicated that its failure had occurred due to an overload of the structure. The only possible explanation was that other anchors had failed before him, so he had to bear much more burden than normal.
• The black box revealed that there was no unusual static overload.
• The examination of the engines did not reveal the existence of any strange body, such as bird remnants.
• In addition, it was revealed that the links continued to rotate at the time the engines hit the lake, which means they were in perfect condition.
• Review of the steel brace He indicated that his failure was due to an overload at the time of the engine's detachment.

Subsequent investigations finally showed that the only certain possibility was that the initial failure had occurred in the central anchors. These anchors are made of high-strength 4330M steel alloy.

The middle anchors of the pylon consist of two lug-shaped structures that are tied to the wing pin through a pin. Thanks to the recovery of the engines, it was possible to see that the lugs of the outer anchor were intact, but the outer lug of the inner anchor had fractured. Investigation showed that the lug had bent and failed under great stress. In addition, it was found that, while the base of the inner anchor lugs was intact, the outer one was not. In this way we can draw two conclusions:

• The inner anchor bun had to fail in such a way that it would make the entire load pass to be supported by the outer orejeta.
• At the time of the failure of the inner anchor the male orejeta of the wing of that area tended to separate from the anchor.

In contrast, the male lug of the outer anchor hit the base of the pylon lugs. This would explain the damage to the base of the outer pylon lugs, while the inner ones were intact.

To prevent detachment in the event of failure, the pin has less section in the areas between the male and female lugs. Fortunately, part of the external pin could be recovered because it was still in the external anchoring lugs, so it has been possible to study the type of failure that caused the external bolt to break.

The fractured section of the recovered pin is a clear case of fatigue. In it you can see very well how in the interior area a large concentration of local stresses occurs that give rise to the crack initiation point. Below you can see the characteristic beaches that appear parallel to the edge in the crack growth zone. There is less and less useful surface capable of transmitting the forces, until towards the middle of the section the moment arrives when the net surface is insufficient and complete failure occurs, tearing the piece and giving rise to a rougher surface.

Boeing carried out an exhaustive investigation of the fatigue failure that occurred and, among other things, examined the crack growth beaches using a microscope. In the illustration we can see this analysis, where each cycle of crack growth that is attributed to each flight cycle is very well observed. The investigation determined that the growth of the crack had been slow at a medium stress level.

After having analyzed the remains found and having ruled out several hypotheses, the following sequence of events is the most probable:

1. Failure to fatigue of the inner anchor pin in the section of smaller interior area. Subsequently, when the useful section was insufficient to convey the efforts, breakage of the piece.
2. Overloading of the external orejeta of the inner anchor.
3. Failure to fatigue and then overload the pin in the section of lower external area in the outer anchor.
4. Overloading of the other section of small area of the outer anchor pin.

In addition, the investigation has concluded that the entire sequence of events occurred on the last flight; that is, the breakage of the inner pin triggered all subsequent failures due to overload.

Conclusions

After this accident and two others that occurred in similar circumstances (China Airlines and Japan Airlines), the idea of ensuring a “clean” detachment of the engines in the event of structural failure has been abandoned. In the three accidents, an engine separated, causing serious damage to the aircraft: to the leading edge, to the hydraulic and pneumatic systems, to the controls, and even in this one that we have just studied and in that of China Airlines, it caused the loss of the another engine. The new idea is that it is not possible to detach the engines. The only circumstance that is considered is failure in the event of a hard landing, where efforts are made to ensure that the engine does not damage the fuel tanks located on the wing. The first measure taken under this concept has been to redesign the anchor pins, eliminating the weak section with the smallest area. In addition, the same pin is now manufactured in stainless steel that is highly resistant to corrosion and fatigue. In this way, it is expected to delay the onset of fatigue failure. The entire pylon program has had to be reviewed under the concept of safe failure and resistance to corrosion and fatigue. In our case, if the inspections had worked properly, the cracks could have been detected in time and thus the accident could have been avoided. The pylon support system has also been completely redesigned, adding two more anchors in the central area. In the illustration, we can see a diagram of the two new anchors that have been added in that area.

Similar accidents

There have been a total of two accidents similar to this one. The first occurred on December 29, 1991, to China Airlines Flight 358, a Boeing 747-2R7F cargo plane that lost both jets on one wing and crashed just minutes after taking off from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. The subsequent investigation reported that the cause of the accident was the same for both the one that occurred in Amsterdam and the one that occurred in Taiwan.

The other accident occurred on March 31, 1993, to a Boeing 747-121 on Japan Airlines flight 46E, when minutes after taking off it lost engine number 2 in an area of turbulence at about 2000 feet of altitude (about 700 m). Immediately after the incident, the airplane rolled and pitched uncontrollably. Unlike in the two previous accidents, the plane did not lose any other engine, so the captain activated the emergency procedure and with engine number 1 at maximum power he managed to overpower the plane and make an emergency landing at Ted Ted International Airport. Stevens Anchorage they had just left. No one was injured in this accident.

Tributes

Eight days after the accident, some 30,000 people gathered in Amsterdam for a day of mourning to honor and remember those killed and injured in the plane crash. By this day the estimated number of dead and missing had already decreased to one hundred.

The architects Herman Hertzberger and Georges Descombes built between 1994 and 1998 at the site of the accident, a monument in tribute to the victims of the accident where the names of all the people who perished as a result of the catastrophe appear.

Filmographies

• This accident was presented in the Mayday Canadian television program: aerial catastrophes, in the episode "High Rise Catastrophe", entitled in Latin AmericaCatastrophe in height"and was also presented in the Mayday program: Special Report, entitled "Loss of a Motor", transmitted in National Geographic Channel.
• The accident is represented in the National Geographic program Second catastrophicIn the episode "Airway in Amsterdam"premiered in 2007.
• Also available is the transcription of the conversations between the pilots and the control tower that were recorded in the black box of the apparatus.
• It is also told at the beginning of the literary trilogy "Caballo de Fuego" by the Argentine writer Florence Bonelli (a fictional love story that is contextualized by a series of historical events connected with the war conflict that still lead Palestine and Israel).