The Cursed History of BSAA

in the late 1940s following the end of world war ii an airline was established called british south american airways or bsaa to run flights from the united kingdom to destinations in latin and south america on behalf of various shipping lines but during its very brief existence the carrier would come to be known for a series of strange airliner disappearances ones that would give the company a reputation for being something of a cursed airline founded on january 25th 1944 bsaa was originally named british latin american airlines or blair and was created through the combined shipping interests of royal mail lines the pacific steam navigation company the lamport and holt line the booth steamship company and the blue star line in order to complement their various shipping services to south america and thereby intensify passenger and cargo corridors a major requirement immediately following the end of world war ii in order to replenish britain's exhausted supplies in the post-war era under the auspices of the company's first chairman w j booth the airline began operations with the avro lancastrian passenger and mail transport aircraft these machines having been derived from the four engine design of the famous lancaster heavy bomber and were capable of carrying 13 passengers this model being merely a stop gap until the delivery of the avro tudor a more refined airliner which took its underpinnings from the avro lincoln heavy bomber the regular routings of bsaa flights during its first year being from hearn airfield near bournemouth which was at the time london's main transatlantic airport to rio de janeiro montefideo and buenos aires via lisbon in portugal bathhurst in the gambia colony and natal in northern brazil on january 1st 1946 bsaa had the distinction of operating the first flight out of london's brand new heathrow airport when the airlines pioneer avro lancastrian star light named in reference to the historic practice of long-range celestial navigation departed on a proving flight to south america followed ten weeks later by the start of commercial services out of heathrow while upon the passing of the civil aviation act of 1946 in which the british airline industry was nationalized and the government of clement atlee bsaa together with british international flag carrier boac a newly established domestic arm bea became a government-owned corporation from august 1st of that year and were charged with developing services from the uk to the east coast of south america later followed by the expansion of routes to the west indies central america and south america's pacific coast six months later bsaa acquired the independent carrier british west indian airways or bwia a budding airline based out of trinidad and tobago after which it was renamed british international airways followed in may 1947 as a means to extend the range of flights over the atlantic by the company experimenting with the possibility of introducing air-to-air refuelling on services from lisbon to bermuda with a lancaster bomber now converted into an aerial tanker being dispatched to refuel the lancastrian airliner over the azores and thereby allow for a non-stop transatlantic run that could be completed in 20 hours though the upcoming introduction of the longer range avro tudors meant this practice was short-lived it was in 1947 however when bsaa encountered the disappearance of its first aircraft as on august 2nd of that year avro lancastrian gulf alpha golf whiskey hotel named stardust departed buenos aires with the final leg of a long flight from london to santiago in chile carrying six passengers and five crew but after three hours of uneventful flying during that afternoon and beginning its descent into santiago at around 5 45 pm stardust never arrived at its destination and despite intensive search efforts by both chilean and argentine rescue teams together with flyovers by other bsaa aircraft on search flights for five days not a trace of the airliner was found and causes as to the loss of the plane varied from sabotage to mechanical failure to even a possible shoot down by a ufo it wouldn't be until 1998 though that the answer is to the disappearance would come when two argentine mountaineers climbing the volcanic peak of tampangato in the andean volcanic belt 50 miles east of santiago came across the wreckage of a rolls-royce merlin aircraft engine together with crumpled pieces of airframe and shreds of cloth in the tuppangato glacier at an elevation of 15 000 feet this being followed two years later by an expedition undertaken by the argentine army which discovered more airplane wreckage including a propeller and aircraft wheels one of which was still intact and inflated while the localization of the debris field indicated that the aircraft must have smashed head-on into the face of the mountain ruling out the possibility that the plane had been destroyed prior to hitting the ground in the end based on the evidence gathered from the crash site it was deduced that due to heavy cloud cover in the area at the time of the crash combined with the influence of the jet stream causing a significant headwind at the airliner's cruising altitude of 24 000 feet the crew believed they were flying at a normal cruising speed and had safely crossed the andes when in reality they had been traveling far slower due to the headwind and thus began their descent into santiago far too early resulting in stardust's impact with the mountain less than a year after the loss of stardust bsaa was once again faced with an airliner disappearance when on january 30th 1948 avro 688 tudor mark iv gulf alpha hotel november papa named star tiger was operating a transatlantic service between lisbon santa maria in the azores and hamilton on the island of bermuda carrying 25 passengers and six crew when it disappeared at around 3 20 am east of bermuda no trace of either the airliner or its complement ever being found the loss of star tiger has been subject to a wide variety of theories the first being a potential mechanical failure as upon departure from lisbon two days earlier the airliner was forced to return to the airport after the pilot captain brian w macmillan noted there were problems with the port inner engine resulting in a delay of 21 and a half hours before the flight departed for the azores where opponent was held up for another day due to poor weather the theory suggesting that the problems with the port engine may have been instrumental in the crash of the airliner poor weather was also considered a factor in the aircraft's loss as although conditions had improved for the flight crew to deem it safe to continue on the next leg to bermuda captain mcmillan opted to only fly at 2000 feet so as to stay below the worst of the high winds and as this was an overnight flight spatial disorientation could have occurred due to there being no visual reference as to the airliner's directional altitude in support of the spatial disorientation theory an hour prior to the departure of star tiger from the azores a bsa lancastrian departed on the same route to bermuda in order to provide early warning to the tudor as to the weather conditions ahead the two aircraft being in near constant radio contact with each other and the station in bermuda but at around 1 30 am the lancastrians navigator using celestial navigation was able to determine that the high winds had blown star tiger off course by at least 60 miles and with fuel reserves running low the airliner could no longer divert to its alternative airport of st john's in newfoundland and was therefore committed to remaining on course for bermuda although captain mcmillan believed that even flying directly into the wind the tudor could reach bermuda with at least an hour's worth of fuel left in its tanks whether the star tiger was successfully able to line up on course with bermuda is another theory as to its loss as once again due to a mixture of high winds and spatial disorientation the tudor may have continued on an incorrect course unknowingly until it ran out of fuel this theory supported by the crew of merchant ship ss troubadour which had reported seeing a low-flying aircraft with lights blinking to the southeast of delaware bay at around 2 am regardless a u.s air force search and rescue operation lasted for five days and involved 26 aircraft and a wide range of surface vessels all of which battled high winds in churning seas but were ultimately unable to find either any remains of the aircraft or its complement of 31 people although a report of several boxes and an oil drum floating 325 miles northwest of bermuda was made by a b-17 search plane on february 1st again supporting the notion that star tiger had failed to find its course and continued on an incorrect bearing until fuel starvation almost exactly a year later bsaa suffered yet another airliner disappearance with star aerial on january 17 1949 another avro 688 chewed a mark iv this time operating a flight from hamilton to kingston jamaica the flight transporting 13 passengers and seven crew where after departure from kindly field at 08 41 am the airliner flew southwest for an hour making its last transmission at 9 42 am before all contact with the tudor was lost the airliner's disappearance only been reported when it failed to arrive in kingston by mid-afternoon a massive search and rescue effort had begun starting with the use of fellow bsaa tudor star panther as it flew the course of the airliner's route but was unable to find any trace of star aerial while support from the u.s navy came in the form of iowa class battleship uss missouri and two essex-class aircraft carriers uss kirsaj and uss leyte with the search conducted by both aircraft and surface vessels covering 55 000 square miles over four days before eventually being abandoned the loss of star aerial was by far the most contentious as the flight was being undertaken in near perfect weather conditions and broad daylight although communications problems were noted over the course of the day which resulted in radio blackouts or static at certain stations for up to 10 minutes at a time this event occurring throughout the entire flight time of star aerial while it was also noted that the flight crew had switched over to kingston frequency when it was still very close to bermuda and therefore pushed the limits of how much could be received by the somewhat archaic range of contemporary radio equipment the mixture of radio blackouts and the distance from the radio station in jamaica meaning that if star aerial had issued a distress signal it's unlikely that it would have been picked up with regard to what any particular emergency may have been this has been a point of even greater conjecture as the tudor was reported to have been in perfect working order when it was put into service that morning and that all members of the flight crew were experienced officers although theories of sabotage while deemed highly unlikely were not entirely ruled out the loss of both star tiger and star aerial and the circumstances under which these airliners had vanished together with the disappearances of an airborne transport douglas dc-3 south of miami on december 27 1948 and united states navy flight 19 a contingent of five grumman tbm avengers on december 5th 1945 helped to perpetuate the myth of the bermuda triangle a loosely defined region in the western part of the north atlantic ocean between bermuda the southern tip of florida and puerto rico wherein dozens of ships and aircraft have disappeared over the years creating with it a notorious urban legend as to the possible intervention of either spiritual or extraterrestrial forces although these theories are largely dismissed as for bsaa the downing of two of its avro tudor flights within the space of a year and with no conclusive reason forced the airline to ground its remaining fleet of five aircraft for examination crippling the carrier's transatlantic operations and forcing the increased use of insufficiently ranged lancastrians while the fiscal losses incurred by the grounding of its long-range fleet meant the company went from a marginal profit of 20 507 pounds in 1947 to a loss of 421 481 pounds in 1948. while in lieu of bsa's bermuda operations via lisbon and the azores boac operated a rival service on a much more attractive run via new york only serving to worsen the airline's deteriorating financial situation by march 1949 with no sign of the examination of bsa's avro tudors coming to an end and with the airline's order for a fleet of canadair north star airliners and gigantic saunders row sr45 princess flying boats unlikely to be delivered until 1951 at the earliest the british government intervened with the air corporations act which was introduced by parliament to consolidate the enactments related to the constitution and functions of boac bea and bsaa which after becoming effective from january 1 1950 amalgamated the former assets of bsa into the ranks of boac as the south american division and the british south american airways name passed into history you

Channel: Ruairidh MacVeigh

Views: 61,775

Keywords: Airbus, Boeing, Air, Aircraft, Airplane, Aeroplane, Airliner, Commercial Airliner, Airline, Airlines, Airways, International Airline, International, International Airport, Departure, Arrival, Take-off, Landing, Flight, Flying, Plane, Runway, Approach, Terminal, BOAC, Colonial, British Empire, UK, United Kingdom, Caribbean, BSAA, British South American Airways, South America, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bermuda Triangle, Jamacia, Avro, Avro Lancastrian, Avro Tudor, Star Dust, Star Tiger, Star Aerial, Azores, BWIA

Id: pR7xXIZnBOU

Length: 12min 46sec (766 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 30 2021