Passengers 15 Survivors 5 Date 6 May 1962 Survivor 5 Crew count 3 | Fatalities 12 Aircraft type Douglas C-47A Dakota Number of deaths 12 Passenger count 15 | |
Site St Boniface Down, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom Operator East Anglian Flying Services trading as Channel Airways Summary Controlled flight into terrain Similar Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flig, Eastern Air Lines Flight 512, Caledonian Airways Flight 153, United Airlines Flight 297, 1962 LOT Vickers Viscount | ||
The 1962 Channel Airways Dakota accident occurred on 6 May 1962 when a Channel Airways Douglas C-47A Dakota registered G-AGZB operating a scheduled passenger flight from Jersey to Portsmouth collided with a cloud-covered hill at St Boniface Down near Ventnor on the Isle of Wight. The aircraft was destroyed and twelve of the eighteen occupants were killed (all three crew members and nine out of 15 passengers, including three infants).
Contents
Accident
The Dakota was on a scheduled flight from Jersey to Southend with a stop at Portsmouth with 15 passengers. With low cloud and drizzle in the Portsmouth/Isle of Wight area, the aircraft notified the controller that they were descending from 3,000 to 1,000 feet. The aircraft was seen flying low over Ventnor just before it crashed fifty feet below the summit of St Boniface Down close to a disused Royal Air Force radar site. The aircraft bounced and smashed through a ten-foot high perimeter fence of the radar site and burst into flames, both pilots and eight of the passengers were killed instantly. The first man on the scene, a farm worker, helped two badly burned girls from the wreckage; after leading two other men to safety he ran up the road to find help where he found a group of seven amateur radio amateurs operating as G3GWB/p taking part in a competition. The radio amateurs alerted another amateur radio operator in Southampton (G3NIM in Netley) who contacted the emergency services. The seven injured were taken to a local hospital at Ryde and Newport; two of them, a stewardess and a passenger, subsequently died.
Aftermath
A Coroner's Inquest was opened and then adjourned for two months on the Isle of Wight on 8 May. The Channel Airways chief pilot said it was the company's first fatal accident in 17 years of operation. The coroner paid tribute to those who took part in the rescue operation, and in particular Edward Price, the farmworker who was first on the scene.
Probable cause
The probable cause was the result of poor airmanship in flying below a safe altitude in bad weather and hitting cloud-covered high ground.