1954 — Sep 5, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines takeoff crash, Shannon Airport, Ireland–12US of 28
–28 (10 US). AP. “28 Are Killed In Airliner Crash.” East Liverpool Review, OH, 9-6-1954, p.1.[1]
–28 (11 US). AP. “Matches Knocked Away Saves Lives…” Lock Haven Express, PA. 9-7-1954, p. 1.
–28 (11 US). AP. “Probe Delay in Shannon Air Rescue.” Syracuse Herald-Journal, NY, 9-6-1954, p. 1.
–28 Aviation Safety Network. Database. “Sunday 5 September 1954, 02:39.”
–28 ICAO. ICAO Circular 50-AN/45; Aircraft Accident Digest No. 7. 1957, p. 20.
–28 (12 US). UP. “12 Americans, 16 Others Killed…” Chronicle-Telegram, Elyria, OH. 9-7-1954, p1.[2]
Narrative Information
ICAO: “Circumstances. The aircraft engaged on a scheduled flight from Amsterdam to New York took off from Shannon, after a scheduled stop, at 0230 hours with a crew of ten and forty-six passengers. The take-off from Runway 14/32 to the southeast appeared to be normal up to lift-off speed. Thirty-five to forty seconds later an inadvertent but almost perfect ditching was made in the River Shannon, 8,170 feet from the departure end of the runway used. Twenty-eight lives were lost and the air craft eventually became a total loss through a combination of ditching, exposure and salvage operations.
“Investigation and Evidence. The flight left Shannon Terminal Building at 0230 hours. It was properly loaded with fuel and load distribution was correct, placing the centre of gravity within acceptable limits. It was properly dispatched. The gross load was 131,930 pounds, well within the maximum allowable take-off weight.
“The before take-off run-up was completed in take-off position on the active runway, No. 14, 5,643 feet long.
“Take-off was made at 0238. V. 1 speed was reached at 3,500 feet and lift-off at 125 knots was made just over the V. 2 speed at approximately 4,000 feet from threshold. The flight then passed over the remaining 1,600 feet of runway in a shallow climb, retracting its landing gear; approached the 17 foot high embankment 850 feet further on and passed over it at a height variously estimated at 20/80 feet. Acceptable evidence tended to indicate that passage was very low, having in mind a heavily loaded aircraft in darkness. A somewhat steeper climb was initiated almost coincidentally with this passage. One ground witness whose evidence could not be shaken in any way was so concerned that he was instrumental in initiating a call to the Security Forces when he felt that the aircraft had “gone into the Shannon”. This witness, a customs officer, with three and a half years service at Shannon, was attracted, justifiably or otherwise, by what he considered unusual engine sound and exhaust flame as the aircraft gathered speed during take-off. He, therefore, particularly observed the take-off, initial shallow climb and passage over the embankment. The initiation of a somewhat steeper climb was followed almost immediately by a shallow descent (in his own words: ‘A gradual glide’) to a point where the flight disappeared behind the Fire Station, which interrupted his line of sight.
“Up to this point observation had been made from a vantage point just inside the Terminal Building. Such concern was felt that the witness went outside, accompanied by another customs officer, to see if the flight would reappear. It did not and it was then that the previously mentioned call was initiated. As no action of an emergency nature followed a t the Fire Station (the Airport Rescue Headquarters) the witness assumed he had been mistaken.
“The duration of the flight was about 31 seconds from the time it passed over the end of the runway until the aircraft first contacted the water in a tail-down slightly right-wing low attitude. It then covered a certain distance to a point 7,350 feet from the runway, where it shed its Nos. 3 and 4 propellers, coming to rest on the Middle Ground, a shallow mudbank, losing Nos. 4 and 4 engines approximately 200 and 100 feet before doing so, at a total distance of 8,170 feet from the end of Runway 14. The aircraft was in complete darkness almost immediately, as the flight engineer switched off the master electrical switch. The cockpit emergency lighting failed as the battery “drowned”. The flight could not have exceeded at any stage a true height of 170 feet.
“Total flight time has been variously estimated at 32-42 seconds. Thirty-nine seconds appear from reconstruction to be reasonable. In this 39 seconds a number of commands affecting changing flight configuration were given:
- a) command gear up at 125 knots,
- b) command f i r s t reduction (MET0 power) at 140 knots;
- c) command flaps up at 150 knots;
- d) command climb power at 160 knots.
“Seconds after command climb power, first contact with the water, described as a “shiver” or a “shudder”, and lasting 3-5 seconds, was made. This was followed by several heavy bumps, which appear to have been the first indication of trouble to all crew members except the captain, who had detected difficulty very shortly before the “shiver”, apparently more from instinct than otherwise….
“The initial investigation of the wrecked aircraft tended to indicate that the landing gear had been up and locked at the time of ditching and that although the left main wheel remained in its up-lock, the nose wheel and right wheel had, at some later time, come out of their up-lock condition. Close examination of the up-locks on the Super Constellation will show that once the up-locks are engaged, severe damage would occur to the up-lock mechanism if forcibly released. They could be released hydraulically, or through severe deceleration forces acting on the hydraulic piston of the up-lock. Owing to the type of system involved this appeared to have been impossible in this case. The uplocks for nose and right main wheels were, practically speaking, undamaged. It was concluded that the left wheel was up and locked and that for all practical purposes the nose and right main wheels were up but had not been locked when the hydraulic system failed to function as Nos. 3 and 4 engines tore loose from the right wing, at the time of ditching….
“The wing flaps were up at time of ditching. The landing gear should be up and locked prior to initiation of flap retraction. The fact that the aircraft was not found in this configuration called for explanation and considerable investigation….
“The wreckage was found about 650 feet to the left of a projection of the centerline of Runway 14/32. The aircraft, after take-off, probably followed a slightly more easterly course than the centerline of the runway and the bank, referred to earlier, was originated only a short time before the ditching….
“While it is clear that the aircraft must have hit the water, with some starboard bank, in a southeasterly course, the Court rejects the opinion that it made a 270 degree turn before coming to rest, as such a turn would have affected passengers and crew much more than they were in fact affected. It has been taken, therefore, that the aircraft came to rest in a more or less southerly direction, partially resting on the mud and partially floating, and that the tide movement at the time of the disaster caused the aircraft to turn through about 90 degrees to its final position. A rough calculation shows that, assuming the aircraft made first contact with the water at an airspeed of 170 knots (ground speed of about 158 knots), approximately at the point some 300 feet before the propellers were found, the time elapsed between this point and reaching the final position of the wreck would have been about 9 seconds. This is justified by the time observations
made by several witnesses on the sequence of shudder, bumps and so-called impact and final coming to rest. The average deceleration must then have been .9g….
“Crew (General): Making due allowances for the effects of ‘after-casting’, the evidence nevertheless suggested insufficiency of drill “in emergency evacuation of the aircraft used.”
“Probable Cause. The probable cause of the accident was as follows:
1) Failure of the captain to correlate and interpret his instrument indications properly
during flap retraction, resulting in necessary action not being taken in sufficient time.
This failure was partially accounted for by the effect on instrument indications of inadvertent and unexpected landing gear re-extension.
2) Loss of aircraft performance due to inadvertent landing gear re-extension.
3) The captain failed to maintain sufficient climb to give him an opportunity of meeting
unexpected occurrences.
“Recommendations. It is recommended:
“1) That warning or signal lights, indicating an unlocked or transient condition of the landing gear, as on the Lockheed l049 Super Constellation, be duplicated.
“2) That self-sufficient emergency lighting be provided in passenger accommodation of transport category aircraft.
“3) Respectfully that regulations be adopted at the earliest date specifying “Standards for ensuring that holders of the instrument rating maintain their competency”….
“4) That flashlights for use of flight crew personnel be so designed that they may be functional while leaving the hands free.
“5) That flight personnel be made aware of the danger that a power-on ditching may remove power plants from the wings, in turn causing damage to the wings and possible loss of dinghies stowed therein.
“6) That flight personnel and all other services concerned, be made aware of the extreme danger of fumes in a confined space, such as the cabin of an aircraft, resulting from ingress (or in-flow) of petrol.
“7) That portable oxygen equipment for emergency use by more than one crew member be available on transport category aircraft.
“Search and Rescue….Rescue operations were delayed because no one at the airport realized, or even suspected, the need for rescue….”
(ICAO Circular 50-AN/45. “Aircraft Accident Report No. 3. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Lockheed Super Constellation, crashed in the estuary of the River Shannon, Ireland, on 5 September 1954. Department of Industry and Commerce, Ireland, Accident Investigation Report, released 31 January 1955.” 1957, pp. 20-34.)
Newspapers
Sep 5: “Shannon Airport, Ireland, Sunday, Sept. 5 (AP)–A New York-bound KLM airliner with 55 persons aboard crashed in the River Shannon today. Eyewitnesses said several persons were seen crawling ashore at the scene. The plane was a Super Constellation, carrying 46 passengers and nine crewmen. It crashed after taking off en route from Amsterdam to New York. The plane had taken on four passengers here. The others boarded the aircraft at Amsterdam.
“Today’s crash occurred only 13 days after another KLM airliner en route from New York plunged into the North Sea off the Cutch Coast. Twenty one persons were lost in that disaster.” (AP. “Airline Crashes With 55 Aboard.” Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, TX. 9-5-1954, p. 1.)
Sep 5 (later): “Shannon Airport, Ireland, Sept. 5 (AP)–The big KL< Royal Dutch airliner bound for New York with 56 persons crashed into the muddy River Shannon’s broad mouth before dawn today. Twenty-seven persons, including 10 Americans, perished amid gagging gasoline fumes, rising flood tides, and slimy mud.
“The toll rose to 28 with the death in a Shannon hospital tonight of an injured American survivor, Mrs. Caroline Plats of 3224 Grand Concourse, the Bronx, N.Y. She had suffered a fracture of the pelvis and other injuries.
“Airline officials said most of those lost fainted from the gasoline fumes and were trapped and drowned inside the Super-Constellation. Some were feared buried alive while struggling across a mile of treacherous mud after escaping from the plane.
“Twenty-nine survivors, 16 of them Americans, reached the bank after wading waist-deep for hours and praying as they crossed the mud. The survivors included 22 passengers and 7 crewmen. Three of the Dutch crew of 10, one a stewardess, perished.
“The Americans missing and presumed dead were identified as:
Elaine Cooper…
Wilbur H. Coultas…La Grange, Ill.
Mrs. Elizabeth Ellis, address undetermined.
William Hudson…Barnegat Light, N.J.
Maria Hyde, St. George, Staten Island, N.Y.
Frits J. Polak…Goshen, N.Y.
Henry K. A. Schultz…Great Neck, N.Y.
Mrs. G.D.S. Thompson…Farmington, Conn.
William D. Tuller…Falls Church, Va.
“The big plane roared along at 190 miles an hour with all four engines racing and hit the water at 3:38 a.m. (10:38 p.m. Saturday). The airliner skidded across the surface and slammed against a submerged mudbank. Gasoline and water poured into the cabin. Some aboard fainted from the fumes and collapsed, while others close beside them made their escape to the airliner’s rubber boats.
“Eighteen hours after the crash a rescue launch landed 25 bodies taken from the plane.
“It was the second crash of a KLM airliner with heavy loss of life in 13 days. A Skymaster crashed into the North Sea Aug. 23 after a stopober here on a flight from New York to Amsterdam. All 21 persons aboard that plane, including a dozen Americans, were killed.
“Today’s crash was only two miles from the airport in the Shannon estuary. The river, belying the silvery adjectives of the songs about it, is brown with mud. At low tide there is a stretch of treacherous, slimy muck often more than a mile wide separating the river bank from the water.
“Gen. I.A. Aler, KLM president who hurried to the scene from Dublin, told newsmen: ‘When everyone in the plane whom the crew could bring to the boats or who could get to them themselves was in the boats, the water was rising in the plane neck high. There was no sign of life. The captain decided that no one else could be saved, and the dinghy pulled away from the plane.’
“The mudbank still blocked the way to safety for those who escaped from the plane. They left the dinghies to cross the muck, but suction was so great it pulled off their shoes and stockings.
“Aler, who talked with the surviving crewmen, said everything appeared normal as the plane took off with its full complement of passengers and baggage. He said he was assured by the captain the plane was climbing normally, despite some reports it appeared to have difficulty in gaining altitude. Then, after only about two minuets of flying time, when the crew had noted no ‘unusual disturbances,’ the airliner, ‘on throttle for four engines, struck water,’ Aler said. ‘There was no question of the plane attempting a forced landing,’ the KLM president said.
“The plane’s navigator, who swam to the mud flat and then crawled to the bank, brought first word of the crash to the airport.
“No one could say immediately what caused the crash. The plane had taken off into a fairly strong southwest wind toward the old Foynes base on the river used by flying boats in World War II. ‘From what we have heard,’ a KLM spokesman said, ‘it suggests that something happened almost immediately after the plane left the runway and the pilot force-landed on a mud-bank the other side of the river near the old base.’
“The pilot, Capt. Adriaan Viruly, 49, one of Holland’s best know airmen, with more than two million flying miles to his credit, helped survivors in the water until nearly exhausted himself, when he was pulled into a rubber boat.
“The surviving passengers had only nightmarish impressions of the fate that struck the airliner suddenly and without warning. Dr. Ernest H. Bettman, orthopedic surgeon of White Plains, N.Y., said: ‘It all happened so quickly we did not know what was going on until the water was up to our knees in the cabin. The lights went out, and the passengers ran up and down the plane in the dark screaming and praying. Something burst, and fuel and water poured in. The fumes were terrible, and many people passed out. Then the air cleared as if someone opened a window. The officers managed to calm the passengers, and people were pushed to the emergency exits into dinghies.’” (Associated Press. “28 Are Killed In Airliner Crash. 10 Americans Perish in Ireland.” East Liverpool Review, OH, 9-6-1954, pp. 1 and 13.)
Sep 7: “Shannon, Ireland (UP) — The bodies of 12 Americans killed when a Royal Dutch KLM airliner crashed into the River Shannon will be flown to the United States Friday, the airline said today. The bodies, together with those of the 16 other persons killed in the still unexplained crash Saturday, lay in the administrative KLM offices at Shannon Airport today. The non-Americans will be flown to Amsterdam tonight.
“Salvage workers were trying to raise the wreckage of the KLM super-Constellation from a mud-bank in the middle of the Shannon estuary, one mile and a half from the airport. The mudbank is above water at low tide, but the clinging black mud has hampered salvage operation.
“Twenty five of the dead were asphyxiated by gasoline fumes after the crash and three drowned in the rapidly rising tide. Twenty eight other persons aboard the plane were saved.” (UP. “12 Americans, 16 Others Killed in Airliner Crash.” Chronicle-Telegram, Elyria, OH. 9-7-1954, p1.)
Sep 7: “Shannon Airport, Ireland — An automatic gesture to light a cigarette in a time of crisis almost snuffed out the lives of all aboard a KLM Dutch airliner which crash landed near here in the Shannon River. But Miss Elizabeth Snyder, of New York City, knocked the matches from the hands of a fellow passenger as gas fumes filled the flooded cabin, the Associated Press reported. Even so, 28 persons, 11 of them Americans, died in the crash. Most of them were overcome by gas fumes. Twenty-eight others, 15 of them Americans survived.
“Capt. Adrian Viruly, captain of the plane, credited Miss Snyder with saving the lives of himself, and the 28 who were rescued.
“Dr. William Flynn, airport medical officer, told an inquest yesterday that 25 of the victims trapped in the cabin of the plane died of asphyxiation form gasoline fumes. Flynn, who made the post mortem examination, said there was no other sign of injury on the bodies or lungs and no evidence of drowning….
“Gen. A.I. Aler, KLM president, told newsmen that failure of instruments to indicate the correct altitude of the big plane only two minutes after its takeoff from Shannon Airport appeared to be the most probable cause of the accident. Aler said the members of the cockpit crew, all seven of whom survived from among the total crew of 10, were unanimous in saying:
- The instruments showed they were climbing when apparently they were either not climbing or were climbing less than they thought they were.
- All four engines were working normally.
“The KLM president said the big airliner could have stalled slightly after takeoff and flown over the Shannon at a relatively low altitude. The surviving crewmen said they did not know the craft was on the surface until they saw water in the cabin.
“Aler said he did not know why there was such a long delay in sounding the alarm, despite the downed plane’s proximity to the airport. But he said airport officials had failed to understand that something was wrong when the plane ‘did not make radio contact with the tower five minutes after its takeoff.’
“During the long delay the survivors made their way first in two rubber dinghies from the sinking plane and ten on foot across a treacherous mile-wide mudbank barring their way to solid ground. They waded waist-deep through the muck, which often threatened to suck them under.
“The Irish government ordered an investigation of the cause of the plane’s sudden plunge into the water and the slowness of rescuers in reaching it.” (Associated Press. “Matches Knocked Away Saves Lives Aboard KLM Plane.” Lock Haven Express, PA. 9-7-1954, p. 1.)
Sources
Associated Press. “28 Are Killed In Airliner Crash.” East Liverpool Review, OH, 9-6-1954, p. 1. Accessed 6-21-2019 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/east-liverpool-review-sep-06-1954-p-1/
Associated Press. “Airline Crashes With 55 Aboard.” Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, TX. 9-5-1954, p. 1. Accessed 6-24-2019 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/lubbock-avalanche-journal-sep-05-1954-p-1/
Associated Press. “Matches Knocked Away Saves Lives Aboard KLM Plane.” Lock Haven Express, PA. 9-7-1954, p. 1.)
Associated Press. “Probe Delay in Shannon Air Rescue.” Syracuse Herald-Journal, NY, 9-6-1954, p. 1. Accessed 6-24-2019 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/syracuse-herald-journal-sep-06-1954-p-1/
Aviation Safety Network. Database. “Sunday 5 September 1954, 02:39.” Accessed 6-21-2019 at: https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19540905-0
International Civil Aviation Organization. ICAO Circular 50-AN/45; Aircraft Accident Digest No. 7. Montreal, Canada: ICAO. 1957. Accessed 6-24-2019 at:
mid.gov.kz/images/stories/contents/050_en.pdf
United Press. “12 Americans, 16 Others Killed in Airliner Crash.” Chronicle-Telegram, Elyria, OH. 9-7-1954, p. 1. Accessed 6-24-2019 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/elyria-chronicle-telegram-sep-07-1954-p-17/
[1] Names ten U.S. citizens killed in the accident.
[2] We assume this is a correct number of Americans killed, in that it is written on Sept 7, and specifically notes the scheduling of the return of 12 American bodies from the accident. We have not been able to find a memorial site in English which might be able to confirm twelve, as opposed to ten or eleven American deaths.