1960 plane crash off Dakar, Senegal
Air France Flight 343
was a scheduled international passenger flight from
Paris
,
France
, to
Abidjan
,
Ivory Coast
, with scheduled
stopovers
at
Dakar
,
Senegal
and
Monrovia
,
Liberia
. On 29 August 1960, around 06:50, the aircraft crashed into the
Atlantic Ocean
while attempting to land at
Yoff Airport
, Dakar. All 55 passengers and 8 crew were killed. A tribunal concluded that the pilot, who had earlier been punished by Air France for recklessness, had continued to land without use of instruments in bad weather, amounting to willful misconduct.
Aircraft and flight
[
edit
]
Air France
Flight 343 was a scheduled passenger service from Paris, France, to Abidjan, Ivory Coast. It made scheduled stopovers at Dakar, Senegal and Monrovia, Liberia.
[1]
[2]
On the day of the incident the aircraft flying the route was a
Lockheed 1049G Super Constellation
with
registration
F-BHBC.
[1]
This aircraft had first flown in 1955 and had recorded 16,417 flight hours.
[2]
Incident
[
edit
]
The aircraft approached
Yoff Airport
, Dakar, in low overcast conditions just before sunrise on 29 August 1960. There was 7/8ths cloud cover at a height of 2,000?3,000 feet (610?910 m) and visibility was rapidly changeable. There were rain
squalls
and thunderstorms.
[1]
The pilot attempted to land the aircraft on runway 01 but aborted this attempt. The pilot was offered an
instrument landing system
landing on runway 30 but declined and entered a holding pattern, hoping that weather conditions improved. Shortly after 06:41 the pilot started a second landing approach on runway 01.
[2]
The landing was aborted at 06:47 and the aircraft overflew the airport.
[1]
[2]
The pilot made a report to air traffic control, giving his height as 1,000 feet (300 m).
[1]
Shortly afterwards the aircraft entered a rain squall.
[2]
The aircraft crashed into the
Atlantic Ocean
at a point around 1 mile (1.6 km) offshore and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from
Les Mamelles Lighthouse
.
[2]
[1]
It struck the water at a steep angle and probably while banking to the right.
[1]
All 55 passengers and 8 crew on board were killed, including the French West African poet
David Diop
.
[1]
[3]
[4]
Investigation and aftermath
[
edit
]
The aircraft crashed in water 130 feet (40 m) deep. A salvage attempt was made and, although most of the bodies were recovered, only 20 per cent of the wreckage was brought back to shore. The
Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety
investigated but could not determine the cause of the crash. It proposed a number of possibilities: a structural failure or loss of control caused by turbulence; a sensory illusion; distraction of the flight crew, possibly by a lightning strike; failure of an
airspeed indicator
or
altimeter
or faulty reading thereof.
[1]
A number of cases were brought against
Air France
for compensation under the
Warsaw Convention
by the families of the victims, including by Diop's widow. The Diop case was decided in 1964 at the
Tribunal de grande instance de Seine
, it was appealed to the
Court of Appeal of Paris
. The decision was made to award the basic level of compensation but not that Air France was particularly negligent. The court found the pilot, who had been earlier punished by Air France for recklessness, had continued to land without use of instruments in bad weather, amounting to wilful misconduct.
[5]
[6]
[7]
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
History
| |
---|
People
| |
---|
Corporate affairs
| Former subsidiaries
| |
---|
Merged into Air France
| |
---|
|
---|