Dan-Air Flight 240

Dan-Air Flight 240

Dan-Air Hawker Siddeley HS 748 at Cardiff Airport in 1980
Accident summary
Date	26 June 1981
Type	Rapid decompression caused by failure of cabin door
Site	Nailstone, Leicestershire, United Kingdom
Passengers	0
Crew	3
Injuries	0
Fatalities	3 (all)
Survivors	0
Aircraft type	Hawker Siddeley HS 748 series 2A
Operator	Dan-Air
Tail number	G-ASPL
Flight origin	Gatwick Airport
Destination	East Midlands Airport

Dan-Air Flight 240 was a Hawker Siddeley HS 748 series 2A turboprop aircraft flying from Gatwick to East Midlands Airport (EMA) on the first stage of a night mail flight, which crashed near the village of Nailstone, Leicestershire following major structural failure caused by the failure of a cabin door.

Accident

The aircraft departed Gatwick at 17:28 with an ETA at EMA of 18:25. The crew comprised two pilots plus a cabin attendant; company policy was to carry one attendant (known as a Postal Assistant) on mail flights.

During its initial descent towards its destination, the attendant reported that one of the cabin door's indicators were showing an unlocked condition. Shortly afterwards, the right hand rear door (the baggage door) opened, detached itself from its hinge mounts and lodged on the leading edge of the right horizontal tailplane. Later reconstruction of the aircraft's flight path from flight recorder evidence indicated that cabin decompression occurred when it was in the vicinity of Market Bosworth.

The aircraft became uncontrollable and went into a steep dive which terminated in several abrupt pitch oscillations. Immediately after the decompression the pilot asked the co-pilot to transmit a "MAYDAY" and requested permission from Air Traffic Control to come straight in for an emergency landing, reporting that he thought he had lost the rear door and that he was having severe control problems.

Shortly after, the radar controller noticed that the aircraft was turning right beyond its assigned heading but attempts to contact it were useless. Approximately 3 minutes after the last distress message, reports began to reach ATC from the police of an aircraft crash.

Several eyewitnesses saw the final moments of the flight. The consensus was that the aircraft was lower than usual for those travelling to EMA and was losing altitude as well as oscillating in both pitch and roll. As it regained level attitude both wings folded up almost simultaneously and became detached from the fuselage along with other pieces of structure.

The wreckage was found scattered across several fields about 1 mi (1.6 km) northeast of the village of Nailstone.

Investigation

Cause

It was concluded that the accident had been caused by the baggage door becoming lodged on the leading edge of the right tailplane after it had opened and detached. This changed the aircraft's aerodynamic characteristics so that it became uncontrollable which in turn resulted in overstressing of the wings and tailplane leading to inflight structural failure, both wings and tailplane becoming detached from the fuselage. A contributory factor was the mis-rigged state of the door operating mechanism which allow the top and bottom pairs of catches to lose synchronisation. Failure of the door warning indicators to give enough warning of door safety was a further contributory factor.

Safety Recommendations

Notes

References

• "Report name: 5/1983 BAe HS 748, G-ASPL". Air Accidents Investigation Branch. http://www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/cms_resources/5-1983%20G-ASPL.pdf.