1924 airplane disappearance
On 24 April 1924,
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
(KLM) operated the
Fokker F.III
H-NABS
on an international passenger flight from
Croydon Airport
in the United Kingdom to
Waalhaven
, the Netherlands. The plane, its pilot, and the two passengers on board disappeared while flying over the
English Channel
. Despite a large search operation, the plane was not found, and is presumed to have crashed into the Channel.
[1]
The plane's disappearance was the first major accident for KLM, founded four years earlier, and is described in many historical overviews of the
flag carrier
airline.
[2]
[3]
[4]
Background
[
edit
]
KLM began operations on 7 October 1919, one of the first commercial airline companies in the world. KLM had strict safety measures and a strict policy for the selection of pilots. At the time of the H-NABS' disappearance, KLM planes had successfully completed 2,734 flights over the
North Sea
between
Rotterdam
and
Croydon
, 3,000 flights between
Belgium
and the United Kingdom, and 7,000 flights between Croydon and Paris.
[5]
Flight
[
edit
]
On 24 April 1924, the H-NABS departed at 10:43 from Croydon Airport with three people on board, the pilot Adriaan P.J. Pijl and two passengers, W. J. van Hien and C. J. M. Modderman.
[6]
Foggy conditions forced a stopover at
Lympne Airport
in
Kent
. The plane then departed from Lympne Airport at 13:34, headed for its final destination, Waalhaven Airport in Rotterdam. The H-NABS was not equipped with radio communication, so H. Nieuwenhuis, who was in charge at Waalhaven, was alerted only after the plane failed to arrive on time.
[5]
Pilot and passengers
[
edit
]
- The pilot was Adriaan Pieter Johannes Pijl (born 22 November 1895 in
Amersfoort
). As a military aviator he had flown 750 hours before he started working at KLM on 1 April 1922. As a KLM pilot he had logged 1,220 additional flight-hours, and had flown over the English Channel 215 times.
[5]
Pijl was described as a very good, calm pilot with a lot of aviation knowledge.
[7]
- Passenger W. J. van Hien was the son of W. H. J. van Hien, who worked as acting director at the time of Dutch state taxes
[
clarification needed
]
in Amsterdam. He was married and lived in
Folkestone
(and not in Amsterdam indicated by some sources).
[7]
Van Hien was en route to Amsterdam for business.
[1]
- Passenger C. J. M. Modderman, approximately 40 years old, was an engineer, working on architecture and lived in Amersfoort. He'd previously travelled to
London
multiple times on business and it wasn’t his first trip by airplane. Modderman had originally planned to return after this business trip to the UK by boat. He was married and had one child.
[8]
Search operation
[
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]
After the plane failed to arrive,
KLM
made extensive efforts to find the plane in the days after the disappearance,
[5]
enlisting all of the aviation centers along the Belgian coast, the north of France and the southeast coast of the United Kingdom via radio. Telephone and telegraph services were used in attempt to gain more information about the plane and its whereabouts. The head of the Dutch radio service, J. Strijkers, worked all night, gathering information.
[5]
[9]
English Channel patrol boats, lightships and coastguards were asked to look out for the airplane.
[5]
During the night an organization was formed to conduct the search operation. After sunrise three Dutch seaplanes of the
Netherlands Naval Aviation Service
stationed at
De Kooy Airfield
, a Dutch
torpedo boat
, three seaplanes of the
Royal Air Force
and KLM airplanes N-NABJ and H-NABX searched the English Channel and the Dutch coast.
[1]
Nieuwenhuis searched together with a photographer using the plane that was normally used for making photographs. Several sandbanks had run dry due to low water, but the aircraft, or parts of it, were not found.
[5]
In the afternoon also French aircraft also searched along the French coast. Four airplanes (F-ADBI, F-GEAB, F-AECU en F-AEFC) on a scheduled flight also searched the flight path.
[5]
[10]
The next day seaplanes of the Dutch Royal Air Force went out again to search for the plane. Dutch seaplanes stationed in
Veere
searched but without a sign of the plane. At the end of the search that day all hope was given up that the aircraft would be found.
[5]
On 26 April a
telegram
was received that a Dutch plane was found at a sandbank of
Goodwin
and a British plane saw oil in that area.
[8]
However, the message turned out to be incorrect.
[11]
KLM director Plesman was publicly praised by the media for the extensive search. The efforts of H. Nieuwenhuis and J. Strijkers were also praised.
[5]
[10]
Reactions
[
edit
]
The accident sparked discussion around the safety of air travel. Since KLM had never had such an accident, it was feared that it would set back air transport in general.
[5]
Cause
[
edit
]
The investigative committee stated, as the only possible explanation, that the pilot must have hit the water flying at full speed under the fog. This may be confirmed by a witness who saw the plane coming over at
Sandgate
, where the visibility was good, but due to the fog over the sea the horizon wasn't visible.
[10]
Measures
[
edit
]
According to experts, the plane wouldn't have crashed if the plane had a radio communication system on board, as it could have been used to fly above the fog. After the accident, all KLM airplanes got a radio communication system. Having a radio communication system on board was made compulsory from 1 October 1924 after the internal aviation conference.
[5]
References
[
edit
]
|
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- Dec 14, 1920
Golders Green O/400 crash
- Aug 23, 1921
R38 Airship crash
- Aug 26, 1921
SNETA Farman Goliath ditching
- Feb 21, 1922
Airship
Roma
crash
- Mar 31, 1922
1922 Beijing-Han Airlines crash
- Apr 7, 1922
Picardie mid-air collision
- Jan 13, 1923
Aeromarine 75 Columbus incident
- May 14, 1923
Air Union Farman Goliath crash
- Aug 27, 1923
Air Union Farman Goliath crash
- Sep 14, 1923
Daimler Airway DH.34 crash
- Dec 21, 1923
Airship
Dixmude
crash
- Apr 24, 1924
KLM Fokker F.III disappearance
- Dec 24, 1924
Imperial Airways DH.34 crash
- Sep 3, 1925
USS
Shenandoah
crash
- Jun 25, 1925
KLM Fokker F.III Foret de Mormal crash
- Aug 18, 1926
Air Union Bleriot 155 crash
- Oct 2, 1926
Air Union Bleriot 155 crash
- Apr 16, 1927
Fokker C-2
America
crash
- Apr 26, 1927
Wooster and Davis's Pathfinder crash
- May 8, 1927
L'Oiseau Blanc
disappearance
- Aug 16, 1927
Dole Air Race crashes
- Aug 22, 1927
KLM Fokker F.VIII crash
- Aug 31, 1927
St Raphael
disappearance
- Jan 10, 1928
Moncrieff and Hood disappearance
- May 25, 1928
Airship
Italia
crash
- Jul 13, 1928
Imperial Airways Vulcan crash
- Jul 14, 1928
KLM Fokker F.III Waalhaven crash
- Dec 3, 1928
1928 Dornier J
Santos Dumont
crash
- Jun 17, 1929
Imperial Airways W.10 crash
- Sep 6, 1929
Imperial Airways Hercules crash
- Nov 6, 1929
Luft Hansa Junkers G 24 crash
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