SPLIT SECOND
TO DISASTER
The
emergency landing of Trek Airways Douglas DC-4 Skymaster ZS-CIG c/n
42913 on 3 September 1960
By: Robin H. Anderson Captain
retired.
"MAYDAY - MAYDAY - MAYDAY This is ZULU
SIERRA CHARLIE INDIA GOLF - A DELTA CHARLIE FOUR -
UNCONTROLLED FIRE NUMBER TWO ENGINE -
POSITION.......
On the third day of a Trek Airways return
flight from Dusseldorf, West Germany, with Captain Tom
Meredith, MD. of the airline, commanding and Captain Ian Laatz
in the left seat with myself as first officer and Vic Francis
as flight engineer, while Inge’ von Mellenthin and her
daughter Gisela, (General von Mellenthin was Field Marshall
Rommel's chief of staff in the Western Desert during WWII, and
a director of the airline.) were the two air hostesses of a
DC-4 Skymaster, ZS-CIG. Captain Meredith was returning from
vacation in Europe hence having two captains on board.
We had departed very early from Cairo
International on the morning of 3rd September 1960 on a direct
flight to Entebbe on the northern shore of Lake Victoria,
Uganda. This was necessitated by the high temperatures and
large fuel load of 'Avgas' required for the ten hour trip,
putting us close to maximum all-up-weight.
The previous afternoon and night had been
enjoyably spent at the Nile Hilton Hotel on the bank of the
Nile River and the passengers had been able to visit the
Pyramids and the famous Egyptian Museum not far from the
hotel, among other attractions.
Because of rising engine temperatures Vic
was forced to combine with Ian in 'step-climbing' so as to
cool down the motors and it took an hour to reach cruising
altitude of flight level one,zero,zero. (10,000 ft.) As I had
flown the shorter leg from Malta the day before, I was
navigating and monitoring the High Frequency radio, bearing
the brunt of lightning from all over Africa crashing in my
ears. There was no 'sellcall' in those days. Tom had meanwhile
put on his baseball cap and removed his shirt; he had well
developed 'abs' and was wont to display them to passengers
visiting the cockpit! The sun was on the other side of the
plane with us flying South, so it was not to improve his tan,
which was good already!
With the aircraft 'on the step' and Vic
happily reducing power for cruise I was about to contact Cairo
with a position report when I heard just one 'ping' from the
fire warning, instead of the expected,
tring,tring,tring....
I
jumped up from the little navigating table behind Tom's seat
ahead of the crew door and dashed around the radio racks and
saw that #2 motor fire warning red light was illuminated and
immediately entered the cabin to get a good look out the port
passenger windows. There were flames coming through the
cowling behind the engine so I returned to stand behind the
operating crew. They had completed feathering and firing the
second CO2 bottle by this time so I reported to Tom that the
fire had burned through the nacelle in the #2 accessory drive
section, and that I was going to put out a 'Mayday call'. He
immediately concurred and Ian, who was watching the number two
engine rearwards from his sliding window said the fire was
getting worse, and nodded. Inge’ and Gisela then came rushing
into the cockpit asking Tom what they should do? He said, "Get
back to the rear and strap yourselves in!"
Telling Tom our position as just having
passed East abeam Assiout on the Nile where there was an
airfield, I handed him a map of the area and began our
distress call on H.F. as above. Completing the call with our
routing, position and height I was immediately answered by
Misrair 264 on route frequency who said he had copied and
would relay to Cairo and asked for our intentions. Quickly
enquiring of Tom, I was able to advise that we were now
heading 305 degrees for an emergency landing at Assiout and
that we had been unable to extinguish the fire in a high speed
dive and that our ETA was approximately 0545Z. Misrair 264
then said, "Roger, will relay and am standing by this
frequency on 88' and 121,5." The time was 0525 Zulu.
Peering out the small round cockpit door
window I could make out that the land below was exceedingly
rough with myriad eroded deep valleys, so a landing there was
out of the question.
Suddenly ZS-CIG plunged downwards and I
staggered back again to behind the pilots shouting, "Take it
easy - that wing could come off!" I saw we had just passed the
edge of the escarpment and Assiout field was in sight just
across the Nile River from a village which turned out to be
Badary (26°59'47.70"N 31°24'45.88"E
click to open in Google Maps). Ian was
looking out at what later we heard was the port oleo hanging
free from the nacelle with burnt out tyres! He said, "I'm
putting her down this side of the river!" (This turned out to
be one of the best crucial decisions made that day - the
airfield was only two miles distant. – The #2 engine with
feathered blades, would have caused burning high octane fuel
to run all over on the hard runway
surface.)
Immediately I advised Misrair 264 of this
new development and he indicated that Assiout was aware of our
situation and wished us Good Luck! - I never did learn if we
had been in contact with Assiout Tower on the VHF
radio!
Rushing back to look out through the
windscreens I asked if they had "Briefed the 'Pax' " and Ian
replied, "NO!"
Grabbing the PA 'mike' hanging behind his
head, I only had time to say, "The first impact is coming up,
now BRACE - BRACE!" as we settled smoothly towards the flat
flood-water plain alongside the fields adjacent to the river.
- We were lined up with Asyut's runway in the near distance
and I could see that we had some port drift on, also that the
speed was 115 knots, and told Ian the speed. He said, "I'll
hold it off a little longer" and then told Vic to feather all
four! (Another very crucial decision, as it would have been
disastrous if the starboard fuel tanks were also ruptured by
the fully feathered propellers tearing out engines three and
four as well! – Note how #3 nacelle is already bent downwards
by the partially feathered blades on that engine; just a
matter of seconds before it too completed it’s feathering
cycle!)
Suddenly ZS-CIG lurched and my right leg
was thrown forward onto an oxygen bottle. For support I had
been holding on to a vertical stanchion which I was standing
behind; and of course the ‘mike’! Engines numbers one and two
had been wrenched from their mounts by the feathered
propellers and rolled under the port wing, rupturing the very
nearly full fuel tanks! Soon after, we slid to a stop and I
dashed to open the cockpit door and jumped out onto the soft
sand and clambered onto the starboard wing.
The passengers had already opened the
small fuselage over wing emergency exit on my arrival and I
began assisting them out and off the sloping trailing edge of
the wing. I noticed Ian outside the crew door helping with
those coming through that way and Tom in the cockpit doorway,
was handing them down.
Later I had to run to the rear emergency
exit which was above my outstretched arms to help a young man
down. Telling him to stay there and help any other passengers,
I quickly returned to the over wing exit and continued my work
there. I must admit that I was non-too-gentle with bulky
people slowing down the process and there must have been quite
a few scrapes and scratches inflicted from the framework, as I
hauled on arms and legs to extricate bodies! You guessed it, I
next had to run back to the rear exit as there was no one
there and another man was about to fall headfirst from that
quite considerable height! On returning to the wing Vic had
put in an appearance alongside Ian on the ground and that
helped considerably as the drop was at least a meter to the
sand. (Later it was learned that he had clambered over the
seatbacks to reach and open the main port cabin door -
fortuitously he could not do so and actually broke the handle
off trying! The fire soon spread along the fuselage to that
point and passengers eager to exit could have been badly
burned, despite the quartering wind blowing the flames from
the heavily Avgas-saturated sand away from the aircraft on
that side!)
Finally no more 'pax' presented
themselves and I leant head and shoulders into the empty cabin
and shouted, "Is there anyone still inside - Is daar enige
mense nog binne?"
Seeing no one, I straightened up and made
for the crew door to retrieve my flight case - which had my
logbook and money in it from changing Egyptian currency for
the passengers Northbound at a fixed rate - in and out - so
that they would not be lumbered with notes unusable back home!
(We bought the local currency in Europe at a discount and the
little extra profit made this way came in useful as our pay
was very low.)
Tom stopped me by shouting from beyond
the starboard wingtip, "Andy get the hell out of there - she's
going to blow!" Now realising that the passengers were spread
willy-nilly all over, I ran towards the other crew members
shouting," ROLLCALL - ROLLCALL." Getting to where Tom was I
checked with Inge’ that there were 64 on board including a
young baby and told her to begin counting along with me. Tom
then said it would not be necessary for her to count as well
and I exploded with, "What if I'm wrong? “ – further incensed
at the unnecessary loss of my valuables!
The count tallied between us and we
turned to see that the fuselage had collapsed from the cockpit
back to the tail empennage! It was found later that the young
mother had left her newborn baby behind but another passenger
had taken it to safety! A passenger told me that from when the
aircraft stopped it had taken under three minutes to evacuate
the aircraft!
We could see a truckload of
troops/firemen arriving on the nearby road and Tom, who had
been given a white shirt by a man with an overnight bag, to
replace his left on his seat, and Ian, walked back to view the
trail of debris including the two engines, propellers and the
port oleo behind the Skymaster. Vic and I carried a stout lady
who had injured an ankle exiting the cockpit door in a
fireman's lift - hands holding each others' wrists - towards
them.
Not long after and a crowd of villagers
came rushing through our group past the soldiers, grabbing at
anything of value including my watch now underneath my
burden's bottom! Vic and I lashed out with our feet and they
left us to hurry to the wreck to salvage what they could, even
climbing onto the remaining wing full of
fuel!
Transported by truck to a nearby school
the passengers soon began complaining about not being given
safety instructions, but when they saw the gaping hole in my
trouser leg and I told them that we had been very lucky to
have survived what could easily have been a catastrophic
inferno, they calmed down. In assessing those hurt, Inge’,
Gisela and I found that a seat had come adrift and there was a
broken finger as well as the ankle to be attended to.
Accompanied on my request by a medical
doctor who was on board to oversee our treatment at a church
hospital, we were very well taken care of by the Sisters
there. My knee received some six stitches and I was amazed to
see that it had not bled! Returning to the school we were then
conveyed to the airfield where we learnt that two DC-3s of
Misrair would be arriving to fly all but 13 of us back to
Cairo. I was to escort the volunteers by train and Ian gave us
money for tickets and food and drink. He had judiciously given
his flight case to a passenger saying, "Here, carry this,"
whilst still in the aircraft!
Needless to say once on the train we were
soon pretty inebriated from local Egyptian beer; even myself,
who am a teetotaler! Mrs. Charles Fortune - whose husband of
cricket commentary fame, was on one of the DC-3s - was very
entertaining with her comments. She said that when I stopped
speaking on the P.A. system I had 'frozen' on the mike button
and my laboured breathing and "Ouch" had been heard in the
cabin! This was cause for much ribbing and laughter by Vic and
others and the time passed quickly, with Vic telling us
amusing stories of his night-time escapades at the Muskey
(Bazaar quarter) in Cairo.
Arriving back at the Hilton after dark we had
been preceded by the Dakota passengers who had been met by the
press and photographers. Inge’ had seen to it that we had new
toothbrushes and paste in our rooms and after a shower and
delicious filet steak room-service dinner, I slept
soundly.
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