This horrifying photograph, captured on March
5th, 1966, depicts the tragic final moments of BOAC Flight 911. What was one of the deadliest
air disasters to have ever occurred at that time. Flying through the air isn’t always
a smooth journey. All airline passengers at some point or another have
experienced turbulence, it’s very common. Turbulence could occur anytime and be
bumpy, kind of like potholes in the sky.
Plane’s though are extremely tough. For example,
the materials used to make our modern passenger planes have made it so even the bumpiest of
skies won’t necessarily bring a plane down. But it wasn’t always like that. As passengers today,
it may be easy to forget that we now have over 100 years of aviation experience to draw from.
Plenty of lessons have been learnt about aviation safety in that time, many of them to do with
the sky itself, this was one of those lessons. As turbulence is the topic of today’s video,
let’s look at the accident of BOAC Flight 911.
The British Overseas Airways Corporation was the
state owned national airline of the UK before the era of British Airways. Between the years of 1939
and 1974, the carrier transported people all over the world with their intercontinental fleet of
aircraft. The accident in question took place in 1966. By the 1960s the airline had acquired a
number of jet aircraft including the most popular passenger jet of its day, the Boeing 707.
With this four engine narrow body Jetliner, BOAC could reach the far extremities of the
world much quicker than the prop liners that came before. Flight 911 was one of those
flights, between London and Hong Kong. It was a multiday day journey that made numerous
stopovers along the way. The first to Montreal, secondly San Francisco, thirdly Honolulu, followed
by Tokyo before the final leg to Hong Kong.
March 4th, 1966, the accident plane was
due to land in Tokyo’s Haneda airport. This wasn’t actually the accident flight.
However it was on this leg where things began to deviate from the schedule, of which the
plane was running on time up till that point. The weather in Tokyo was very poor with very limited
visibility. The instrument landing system was also inoperative at the time. The pilots diverted
the flight to Fukuoka until the following day, where it would make its expected stop in Tokyo.
I would be remissed if I neglected to mention that on that very day, the day the plane
diverted, another fatal air accident took place. Canadian Pacific Airlines Flight 402 crashed at
Tokyo Haneda. The Douglas DC8 crashed into the sea wall short of the runway in poor visibility
leading to the deaths of 64 people. That is perhaps a story best saved for another day.
March 5, 1966. Flight 911 left Fukuoka for the short flight to Tokyo where it arrived at
12:43 in the afternoon. The weather that day was much better. In fact it was basically
the opposite extreme compared to the day before. A weather front had moved in from
the west and the skies were clear. In Tokyo, the plane would make its usual turnaround, some
passengers left, and some boarded the plane.
Perhaps to throw in a bit of trivia, five highly
notable passengers never turned up for the flight. As it turned out those passengers were Movie
producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, best known for producing the early James Bond
series of movies. They were touring Japan scouting for locations to shoot You Only Live Twice that
would release the following year. Alongside the two was Set Designer Ken Adam, Screen Writer
Lewis Gilbert and Cinematographer Freddie Young. They cancelled their bookings on flight 911 last
minute to watch a Ninja demonstration instead.
At the Flight Controls was
45-year-old Captain Bernard Dobson. As far as 707 pilots go, he was one of the
most experienced at BOAC on this plane, having flown the aircraft for 6 years by the time
of the accident. He was very well versed in flying in and out of Tokyo. He was familiar with not only
Haneda airport but also the surrounding area.
We don’t know as much about the other
flight crew members, their names were withheld from the public for one thing. But we
know the First Officer was a 33-year-old man, who was also proficient on this plane having
logged just over 2,000 hours in the type.
There were in fact two further men on the flight
deck that day. A 33-year-old Second Officer and 31-year-old Flight Engineer and again, neither of
them were new to the plane. Upon reaching Tokyo, the pilots met with a dispatcher from BOAC
where the flight to Hong Kong was filed. After departure, the pilots were to bank the plane to
the right and join an airway at Oshima just a few miles from the airport. The new departure
time of Flight 911 from Tokyo was now 1:45.
On time the pilots communicated with air traffic
control in Haneda, and the engines were started. On board were 124 passengers and crew. At 1:58,
flight 911 left the ground again at Tokyo. As a quick mention here, some documenting the crash
of the Canadian Pacific plane the day before actually caught the accident BOAC flight on film
as it taxied and took off. The passengers perhaps shocked as the caught a glimpse of the smoldering
plane wreckage still on the ground. As expected, the flight made the right hand turn.
The plane’s take-off wouldn’t actually be the only thing captured on film. As it
turned out, there was a passenger sat in a window seat who possessed an 8mm film camera
and was also capturing the departure on film. This film would eventually be found amongst
the wreckage by investigators and from that, they were able to not only plot where the
plane flew but also cross reference that data with eye witness statements and radar.
It is likely that this passenger was taking the opportunity to capture aerial film footage
of Fujiyama. The recovered film showed how the camera person captured Japanese countryside as the
plane climbed. Fujiyama (also known as mount Fuji) is undoubtably the most prominent geographical
feature in this region. It’s an Active volcano, and its presence dominates the landscape
here. It’s the tallest mountain in Japan.
Flight 911 would soon fly over the small city of
Gotemba, nearby to the mountain. It had become a feature of departures out of Tokyo, that pilots
would often treat their passengers to views of Fujiyama. To do this pilots needed to deviate
from their flight plans. It’s something that Captain Dobson had done before as well. Passing
over Gotemba City, the pilots turned the plane to a heading of about 300, a Northwesterly heading,
towards the mountain. The plane’s altitude at this point was climbing through 16,000 feet, with
the pilots intending to level out at 17,000. The peak of Fujiyama stands at 12,388 feet,
flight 911 was well above the mountain, but it was an invisible killer that took the lives
of 124 people that day. Let’s break that down.
On the plane’s new heading, the 707 passed over
the town of Takigahara, west of Gotemba. It was here that the plane began running into problems.
Suddenly, severe turbulence was being inflicted on the plane. Throughout that day, numerous other
aircraft had reported severe turbulence around the mountain. A total of 79 other planes reported
this turbulence within a regional radius of 150 kilometers from Fujiyama. Captain Dobson was well
aware of the phenomenon of Clear Air Turbulence and even expected it on this occasion. The way he
understood it, was that the content of the reports from other aircraft contained no dangerous threat
to his plane. He flew closer to the mountain and began a descent back down to 16,000. But let’s
take a look at that moment for just a moment.
A weather station positioned at the peak of
Fujiyama recorded wind speeds reaching nearly 70 miles per hour. As the air passes over the
mountain peak, the air flow is disrupted created a waving air flow that towers well above the
mountain peak, we can call them “Mountain Waves”. The air also has a tendency to curl back in on
the mountain itself creating rotors of extremely turbulent air that spins around and around.
These rotors of air are completely invisible, and pilots are warned that they can appear without
warning. On that day in 1966, this effect could have been exacerbated further by the extreme
change in weather in the preceding hours. Weather fronts moving in from the west creating this
region of turbulence on the mountain’s East side. It was one of these rotors
that Flight 911 flew into.
The accident plane upon reaching this
turbulence was hit with enough force that metal fatigue fracturing occurred in
the key structural elements of the plane. Here is how the accident report puts it…
“It is presumed that the aircraft broke up in a very short period of time due to an abnormally
high gust load and resulting high inertia force in excess of the design limit.” One source
indicating that some passengers were likely killed by the massive changes in gravitational forces
brought on by the turbulence in this moment. Remember that passenger who was recording the
Japanese countryside from their window seat? The recovered film when played back showed a skip of
two frames at the time of disaster, thought to a result of a malfunction or jam in the camera’s
feeding mechanism induced by the sudden jolt of the plane. If you’re curious, the camera was
panned to the cabin, before it swiftly ended.
To get into a bit more detail, fractures
occurred in multiple places. The outward section of the right wing was bent
upward to the point of breaking, investigators also found fracturing in the rear
spar fitting on the right side of the tailfin, leading to a loss of the tail structure following
into a collapse of the Horizontal Stabilizers. As you’d expect, Captain Dobson flying the
plane, lost all control of his aircraft.
Flight 911 pitched upward, stresses on the
airframe led to the failure of all four engine pylons. Given that it was a clear day and
there are many populated areas around Fujiyama, thousands of people observed the plane plummeting
to the ground. Many noting a white vapor trailing from the plane. This was also observed in the
numerous photographs taken. It is also clear from these photographs that the 707 entered
a flat spin, the pilots (if they were still alive at that point) had absolutely
zero chance of recovering their plane. The aircraft’s loss of control occurred
in an instant from an invisible killer they didn’t know was there. The lives of
124 people were lost alongside the plane.
BOAC Flight 911 was at the time, one of the
deadliest air disasters to have ever occurred. At the time, the effects of strong turbulence caused
by Mountain waves was not very well understood, the technological limitations of the 1960s left
a lot to be desired in this field of research. The investigation prompted a
closer look at the phenomenon.
The sightseeing aspect of this disaster can’t
really be overlooked. The pilots deviated from their original flight plan and flew too
close to the mountain. Lessons learned from this accident have helped keep millions
of passengers safe throughout the decades, we now know so much more about meteorology than
we ever could have imagined at the dawn of the jet age. Airplanes are physically made stronger
to withstand immense forces. That flexing of the wings you may see on your own journeys in
turbulence is a completely intended feature that allows the wings absorb extreme loads.
The crash of the BOAC plane really brought the dangers of clear air turbulence
and mountain waves to the forefront of aviation safety and while the danger still
lurks out there invisible, pilots are all to aware of the danger posed by the mountains. Patreon Outro
Hello everyone thanks for watching. When I set out
to make this video, I was rather surprised at the lack of coverage of this accident. It’s truly a
fascinating and horrifying story with extremely ominous surrounding circumstances.
If it’s any consolation to anyone, I believe that there actually hasn’t been
an accident of this magnitude in relation to mountain turbulence since the BOAC incident.
Anyway I will not keep this outro too long because I’ve got a sore throat which is why I may
have sounded a little different in the video.
A massive thank you to my Patrons over on
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That is where I’m going to end the video now, if
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great day and I will see you next week. Goodbye!
