The History of Aircraft Accident Investigation

1. The History of Aircraft Accident Investigation Jim Williams May 2007 FAA Production Studios

2. Accident History The first known aviation fatality, deaths of balloonists Pilâtre de Rozier and Romain (June 15, 1785).

3. Accident History Lilienthal's greatest contribution was to the development of heavier-than-air flight, he made over 2000 flights in gliders. On 9 August 1896, a gust of wind fractured his wing and he fell from a height of 17 m (56 ft), breaking his spine. He died the next day, saying, "Opfer müssen gebracht werden!" ("Sacrifices must be made!")

4. Accident History The first airplane fatality in history occurred in 1908 when Lt. Thomas Selfridge was killed in this plane piloted by Orville Wright. The accident was caused by propeller separation. Orville Wright suffered broken ribs, pelvis and a leg. (September 17, 1908)

5. Accident History • First Professional Accident Investigation • Frank P. Lalm 1st Lieut. Signal Corps

6. Accident History Mr. Chanute was 15 feet south of the press tent and 560 feet west of the point where the machine struck, that is on the opposite side of the aeroplane shed. Mr. Chanute testified that the machine was perhaps 60 feet up and circling the field to the left. He went 40 or 50 feet to the south so as not to be behind the tents between himself and the aeroplane shed. When the machine was 300 feet from him, the propeller flaked off or snapped, and the piece fluttered down to the ground; the aeroplane maintained it's level at 60 or 100 feet, then oscillated and pitched down with the left side depressed and disappeared from his view behind the bushes. He did not see it strike. When he examined the broken propeller blade, Mr. Chanute testified that the wood was brittle and over seasoned, or kiln dried. A few days later Mr. Chanute informed me that he thought the propeller blade had struck the upper guy wire of the rear rudder and had torn the end of the wire from it's attachment from the rudder.

7. Accident History Orville Wright He said he heard a clicking behind him about the time he crossed the aeroplane shed. He decided to land at once but as there was scarcely time to do it before reaching the cemetery wall, he decided to complete the turn and head toward the upper end of the field. He thought he was about 100 feet high at the time the propeller broke and that he descended more or less gradually to 40 feet, then the machine dropped vertically. He shut off the engine almost as soon as the clicking began, then corrected a tendency to turn which the machine seemed to have. All this time the machine was coming down pretty rapidly. He pulled the lever governing the front rudder as hard as possible, but the machine still tipped down in front, so pushed the lever forward and pulled it back again hard, thinking it might have caught or stuck. At the time of our conversation, October 31st. he said he thought that the rear rudder had fallen sideways and the upper pressure of the air on it probably threw the rear of the machine up and the front down, and that this accounted for the failure to respond more readily to the front rudder. He stated that at a height of about 60 feet, the front end of the machine turned nearly straight down and then it fell. About 15 feet from the ground it again seemed to respond to the front rudder and the front end came up somewhat, so that it struck the ground at an angle of about 45 degrees.

8. Accident History On September 17th, Mr. Wright was almost ready to begin his official trials so he put on a set of new and longer propellers that day for the purpose of tuning up the speed of his machine preparatory of making his official speed trial. These propellers were probably 9 feet in diameter, the ones in use up to that time were probably 8 feet 8 inches in diameter.

9. Accident History • Gentlemen: The machine was completing the last quarter of the turn when the portion of the blade was thrown off. It was apparently the blade toward the center of the circle being described by the course of the machine, that was broken. The machine completed the circle and was headed toward the starting derrick, the engine running and the flight apparently undisturbed. It proceed about 200 feet and started to descend assuming a negative angle (i.e. the chord of the surfaces became directed toward the earth). • Its elevation was probably 65 feet when the descent began. AT about 25 feet above the ground its angle of incidence became positive (i.e. the chord of the surfaces directed skyward). It did not gain sufficient horizontal velocity by the downward and forward pitch for support. It again took a negative angle of incidence and struck the ground. The forward framing struck first the side to the left of the aviators slightly in advance of the side to the right. The angle at which the surfaces struck seemed to be about 40 degrees.

10. Accident History • The stability of the machine considered sideways was disturbed and unsteady. The motor was topped during the first pitch forward. • The course of the descent may be shown diagrammatically, as it appeared to me, by the following dotted lines. The accompanying straight lines show the angle of incidence at the point in the course at which they are placed. The cross indicates the point of accident to the propeller.

11. Accident History ---Board finds--- • That the accident which occurred in an unofficial flight made at Fort Myer, Va., at about 5:18 pm, on September 17, 1908, was due to the accidental breaking of a propeller blade and a consequent unavoidable loss of control which resulted in the machine falling to the ground from a height of about seventy-five (75) feet. • The Board finds that First Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge, First Field Artillery, ( attached to the Signal Corps by War Department orders and assigned to aeronautical duty), accompanied Mr. Wright, by authority, on the aeroplane, for the purpose of officially receiving instruction, and received injuries by the falling of the machine which resulted in his death.

12. Accident History The Comet Elba, Jan 10, 1954 Midair breakup at 27,000 feet/tail section still intact/29 dead

13. Accident History • Decompression/explosion-pathology • Metal fatigue-pressurized model in pool • Techniques on found parts were advanced • Complete aircraft reconstruction • Metal fatigue

14. Accident History • Redesign of windows and and cutouts • Manufacturing process improved/ rivots improved • Grounding of aircraft worldwide • Linking accidents and incidents together

15. Accident History • A United Airlines Boeing 247 was destroyed by a nitroglycerin bomb on October 10, 1933, over Chesterton, Indiana, killing all ten aboard. The Chesterton Crash was the first proven case of air sabotage. • The zeppelin LZ129 Hindenburg caught fire while approaching to land at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey on May 6, 1937 — the fire destroyed the largest airship ever built and killed 35 of the 97 onboard and 1 on the ground, effectively ending the era of commercial lighter-than-air travel.

16. Accident History • The Grand Canyon Midair Collision, on June 30, 1956, in which a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation and a United Airlines Douglas DC-7 collided while flying over the Grand Canyon in Arizona, killing all 128 passengers and crew members aboard both aircraft. • The Tenerife disaster: on March 27, 1977, two Boeing 747 airliners, from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and PanAm collided on the runway of Los Rodeos Airport, Tenerife, Islas Canarias, killing 583 people. It is the worst accidental disaster in the history of aviation.

17. Accident History • Korean Air Flight 007 — Shot down by Soviet Union fighter planes. All 269 passengers and crew on board died. • Pan Am Flight 103 — Also known as the 'Lockerbie Bombing' or the 'Lockerbie Disaster' in the UK. On December 21 1988 Boeing 747 was destroyed in mid-air by a bomb, killing all 278 on board and another 11 on the ground. (Had the plane taken its intended route it would have blown up over the atlantic ocean.)

18. Accident History • United Flight 232, in which the main hydraulics and both redundant back-ups were severed by a broken fan blade. The flight crew maneuvered the craft by skilled thrust application. Over 100 passengers died, but the pilots were praised for averting a total catastrophe. • TWA Flight 800 exploded over the Atlantic Ocean on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 people onboard.

19. Accident History • Air France Flight 4590 was a Concorde flight from Charles de Gaulle International Airport near Paris, France to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, New York, which crashed on July 25, 2000, in Gonesse, France shortly after takeoff, killing all on board and four on the ground. The crash led to the end of Concorde flights.

20. Accident History • September 11, 2001 attacks — American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were intentionally crashed into the World Trade Center buildings in Manhattan, New York on September 11, 2001, killing all on board and 2595 on the ground as the buildings collapsed. Concurrently, American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 93 were crashed in related terrorist attacks, into The Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, respectively. As with the World Trade Center attacks, all on board these two flights were killed, as well as 125 in the Pentagon.

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