1972 — March 3, Mohawk Airlines Flight 405 ILS crash, hits house, Albany, NY — 17

–17 Aviation Safety Network. Accident Description. Mohawk Airlines Flight 405, 3 Mar 1972
–17 Kimura. World Commercial Aircraft Accidents 3rd Ed., 1946-1993, V.1. 4-11-1994, p. 3-17.
–17 NTSB. AAR. Mohawk Airlines, Inc…Albany, New York, March 3, 1972.

Narrative Information

National Transportation Safety Board: “Abstract. A Mohawk Airlines, Inc., FH-227B, crashed into an occupied house 3.5 miles south of Albany County Airport, New York, at 2048 e.s.t., March 3, 1972. Fourteen passengers, two pilots, and one occupant of the house died in the accident. Thirty-one passengers, the stewardess, and four occupants of the house were injured. The aircraft and the house were destroyed. The weather was: indefinite ceiling 1,200 feet obscured, visibility 2 miles in light snow, wind 360 degrees at 9 knots. The flight was conducting a back course ILS approach when the crew reported difficulties with the left propeller and that they were going to land short. Examination of the propeller system revealed no significant deficiencies. All components were ground or flight tested with no malfunctions.

“The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the inability of the crew to feather the left propeller, in combination with the descent of the aircraft below the prescribed minimum altitudes for the approach. The Board is unable to determine why the left propeller could not be feathered. Contributing causal factors for the nonstandard approach were the captain’s pre-occupation with a cruise pitch lock malfunction, the first officer’s failure to adhere to company altitude awareness procedures, and the captain’s failure to delegate any meaningful responsibilities to the copilot which resulted in a lack of effective task sharing during the emergency. Also, the Board was unable to determine why the propeller pitch lock malfunctioned during the descent.” (NTSB. AAR. Mohawk Airlines, Inc…Albany, New York, March 3, 1972, p. ii.)

[Flight 405 was a La Guardia Airport, NY, to Albany, NY flight with a crew of 4 and 45
passengers.]

Sources

Aviation Safety Network. Accident Description. Mohawk Airlines Flight 405, 03 Mar 1972. Accessed 3-10-2009 at: http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19720303-0

Kimura, Chris Y. World Commercial Aircraft Accidents 3rd Edition, 1946-1993, Volume 1: Jet and Turboprop Aircrafts. Livermore, CA: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Risk Assessment and Nuclear Engineering Group. 4-11-1994.

National Transportation Safety Board. Aircraft Accident Report. Mohawk Airlines, Inc. Fairchild Hiller FH-227B, N7818M, Albany, New York, March 3, 1972 (NTSB-AAR-73-8; File No. 1-0001). Washington, DC: NTSB, adopted April 11, 1973, 81 pages. Accessed at: http://www.airdisaster.com/reports/ntsb/AAR73-08.pdf