Chapter 2

The Birth of Whisky Echo

At the beginning of 1962 a Boeing 707-420 rolled off the production line at the company’s west coast plant at Seattle, Washington. The aircraft was given the designation 707-465; 707-4 to demonstrate that it was a 707-420 series and 65 to show which company had ordered it. The number 65 was the customer identification allocated by Boeing to the British company, Cunard-Eagle.

Cunard-Eagle had applied for, and been given, a licence to operate a service between London and New York in direct competition with the state-owned airline, BOAC, and had ordered two Boeing 707s to use on the new route. It had been a landmark decision by the licensing board as an independent airline had never before been granted a licence for a route already operated by a state-run company. BOAC was not pleased with the board’s decision. Cunard-Eagle would be taking away some of its passengers and, therefore, its revenue and that was something the company was prepared to fight hard to retain. An objection to the licence was lodged with the licensing board and an enquiry was held. To the dismay of the smaller airline, BOAC’s objection was upheld and Cunard-Eagle’s licence to operate across the Atlantic to New York was revoked.

The purchase of the two 707s had been a huge financial undertaking and to operate them on routes other than those for which they had been intended was not something for which Cunard-Eagle had been prepared. The North American route was the one route that would have enabled the company to recoup some of its outlay and without it Cunard-Eagle had little use for the 707s. It had been too late to cancel the order as the first aircraft had been delivered on 27 February 1962 and had been given the Bermudan registration, VR-BBW, since it was now planned to fly it on the route between London and Nassau via Bermuda. The licence for this route was held by Cunard-Eagle’s Bermudan subsidiary which meant that the aircraft had to be registered there. Further plans were made to extend the service on to Montego Bay in Jamaica in the hope that it would become more profitable. The inaugural flight departed London on 5 May 1962 but because the service operated only twice weekly the aircraft was not fully utilized.

In the meantime BOAC and the Cunard Steamship company had been conducting secret negotiations. Cunard decided to end its agreement with Eagle and, on 6 June 1962, a new company, BOAC-Cunard, was formed with BOAC holding 70 per cent of the shares. This meant the end for Cunard-Eagle but Eagle itself continued to operate as British Eagle International Airways although it didn’t take delivery of its second 707, allocated the registration VR-BBZ, which was never used. Instead it went direct to BOAC on 7 July and was given the registration G-ARWE – Whisky Echo. It was followed on 28 September by the other 707 which had been re-registered by BOAC as G-ARWD – Whisky Delta. Both aircraft were operated by BOAC on behalf of BOAC-Cunard but this partnership was eventually dissolved in 1966 and they were registered to BOAC on 12 October. Whisky Delta served with BOAC until the beginning of 1973 when it was leased to BEA Airtours (later British Airtours) and it ended its flying career in 1981. It was sold to the Boeing Aircraft Company and was scrapped in May of that year in Kingman, Arizona. Its sister aircraft, Whisky Echo, would not be so lucky.

Just over six months after it began its service with BOAC, Whisky Echo had its first minor accident when, in the freezing winter of 1962-3, it was hit by a loading vehicle which was reversing away from the rear hold, prior to the aircraft leaving Heathrow for a flight to New York. The ground was covered in ice and the driver, who had had a twenty-two year trouble-free career, could not stop the vehicle from sliding sideways and coming into contact with the trailing edge of the starboard outer flap. The accident caused a 2-inch dent but the aircraft was soon repaired.

In the six years that Whisky Echo flew for BOAC it, in common with all airliners and, indeed, other forms of transport, suffered other minor maintenance problems. These ranged from burst tyres after training flights at both Stansted and Shannon; the malfunctioning of a light indicating whether or not the undercarriage was locked in place on a flight from Caracas to Bogota; a cracked window on a flight between Frankfurt and Beirut; a bird strike on a flight from London to New York and the occasional knock from a loading vehicle, catering truck or refuelling bowser in places such as Montreal, New York, Darwin and Sydney.

In Montreal, in the summer of 1966, while Whisky Echo was parked at Gate 33, the jet efflux from an Air France 707 blew a jeep which was parked nearby, into the port side of the aircraft, holing it in two places. The remainder of the flight was cancelled and the aircraft was taken out of service while the damage was repaired. There were one or two instances where the engine compressor blades failed, which led Rolls-Royce, the manufacturers of the aircraft’s Conway 508 engines, to amend the maintenance manuals, and to introduce grit blasting of the blade roots to improve the fatigue life of the blades themselves. It is a tribute to the thoroughness of BOAC and its engineering staff that every incident was meticulously logged and investigated, and that not only were excellent repairs made but the lessons that were learnt from the incidents, in some cases, led to changes in procedures and policy that would ensure greater safety for the airline industry as a whole.

During the last year of Whisky Echo’s life there were three incidents, one of which was very similar to the accident that destroyed the aircraft in 1968.

The first happened in Frankfurt in early May 1967 on a flight which had begun in Sydney. The stop before Frankfurt had been Rome and the aircraft arrived from the Italian capital at 09.41 on a bright clear morning, and parked at Stand 6. After the usual checks, refuelling and boarding of passengers, the doors were closed, clearance was sought and given for the starting of engines and the First Officer began taxiing the aircraft to the holding point for runway 25R. The charts which showed the parking positions at Frankfurt-am-Main airport gave recommendations as to where to turn to position for runway 07 but there was no similar advice for runway 25R. Worse still the chart for Ground Movement Control and Start-up Procedures did not have any of the positions of the stands marked, and showed the holding point for runway 25R as being where Stand 1 had been built. The First Officer had to decide for himself how to get to the holding point for runway 25R and elected to turn right and proceed through the area of Stand 1. Unfortunately he misjudged the distance and angle of the turn and the port wingtip hit the passenger loading bridge on Stand 1. The yellow guide line through the stand, which should have indicated the central position, allowed a mere 18 feet clearance between the loading bridge and the 707’s wingtip. In addition the 142 feet 5 inch wingspan of the aircraft and the sweep of the wings made tight turns difficult and, on further investigation, it was discovered that the guide line was not in a central position anyway and there were other lines on the tarmac which were obsolete and misleading but had not been obliterated when the stand had been built.

The flight had to be cancelled. The passengers were rebooked on other flights to London and the aircraft had a new wingtip fitted and a temporary repair made to the wing’s leading edge. It was ferried back to Heathrow by the crew, and major repairs were carried out at the airline’s maintenance base. Although BOAC acknowledged that their procedure for updating the airport charts needed improving, it was also felt that the Frankfurt airport authorities needed to ensure that the ground markings were accurate and did not mislead pilots.

Just over six months later came what was the most serious incident Whisky Echo had suffered up to that point in its life with BOAC.

At lunchtime on 21 November the aircraft was preparing to leave Honolulu for Tokyo. It was a hot, clear day with visibility of fifteen miles as the 707 began its take-off run. As it reached a speed of just over 100 knots the No. 4 engine LP1 turbine rim and blading, and the Nos. 1 and 2 turbine stators broke off and smashed through the engine casing. The debris from the engine holed the wing and fuselage and the Nos. 2, 3 and 4 rear main wheel tyres. The thrust reverser unit in No. 4 engine also broke away and fuel began leaking from the damaged wing. It rapidly ignited in the jet efflux from the engine but because the aircraft had not yet reached the point of no return in its take-off run the crew were able to abandon the take-off. As the aircraft decelerated there were two explosions heard and a fire in No. 4 engine broke out. This was reported by air traffic control to the crew who immediately carried out an engine shut down drill. The fact of the fire explained the observation of the Flight Engineer that ‘…all No. 4 instruments were haywire’.

When questioned the Captain said that at around 100 knots he had heard a loud explosion and the aircraft began shaking. He immediately decided to abandon take-off but at this point neither he nor the rest of the cockpit crew were aware that the aircraft was on fire. Having made the decision to stop, the Captain then discovered that he had a problem with the thrust reverser on No. 4 engine because the lever was jammed open about one third. He applied full reverse on the inboard engines and corrected the resultant swing to starboard. He then made a rapid turn onto a taxiway where the aircraft came to a stop. The remaining engines were shut down, electrics switched off and an evacuation of the aircraft was ordered by the Captain.

Since No. 4 is the outboard engine on the starboard wing, the evacuation had to take place via the port side of the aircraft and a steward at the forward port door immediately opened it and tried to deploy the chute. Something went wrong with it, however, and it began to inflate within its container in the cabin. Having done so it ripped and deflated and was of no further use.

The fire was, by now, being brought under control by the Honolulu airport fire service but, when a stewardess opened the starboard over-wing emergency exit, smoke and foam poured into the cabin. The port over-wing exit was opened and some passengers escaped through this but six were injured doing so. The remaining passengers and crew all left the aircraft via the port rear door where the chute functioned perfectly. None of the passengers received life-threatening injuries and those that were hurt were given medical attention at the Hickam Air Force Base Dispensary. Two passengers with broken bones were taken on to the Queen’s Hospital so that X-rays could be taken and, in the case of one woman, for an operation on a broken ankle the following day.

During the enquiry into the accident it was revealed that the malfunctioning chute had been incorrectly deployed. The release drill was a two-part operation. When the container housing the chute had been opened the chute had to be rigged and a rip cord pulled to release it from the container. Having done this the chute was thrown out of the door and the air bottle discharge release handle pulled to inflate it. The enquiry revealed that the steward had forgotten to pull the rip cord and so when the air bottle handle was pulled the chute inflated within the container until the increasing pressure of the air caused it to burst out of the container and rupture. The bottom pin of the rip cord assembly and all the centre fastener eyelets were bent, with three of the fasteners having been torn away completely. With the fasteners bent and broken it was possible to push the chute out of the aircraft but the one foot tear in its underside, about one third of its length from the bottom, rendered it completely unusable.

When the surface of the runway was inspected two days after the accident it was found to be pitted and the shape of the marks was consistent with impact from turbine blades. There were turbine blades on and to the side of the runway and the thrust reverser that had broken away from No. 4 engine was found 50 feet from the right-hand edge of the runway and 3,250 feet from its threshold.

The No. 4 engine was actually older than the aircraft itself, having been manufactured in February 1960. Its total service time up to this point had been 16,280 hours but it had had a major overhaul at BOAC’s Engine Overhaul facility at Treforest in south Wales three and a half months before the accident. It had then been sent to Delhi as a spare and was fitted to Whisky Echo on 30 August 1967. It had since flown for only 868 hours. At the overhaul the main thrust bearing had been replaced by a new one which had a new modification standard and introduced a modified cage and vacuum melted balls and races.

Following the accident the engine was recovered and sent to Rolls-Royce in Derby who carried out an inspection on 6 December 1967 and confirmed that the main thrust bearing had failed. It was believed that the failure had been caused by a fracture to one of the balls. BOAC immediately recalled all engines fitted with bearings to this standard and a new modification was issued with the work on all the affected engines planned to have been completed by the end of June 1968. The enquiry made by the airline suggested that the fire damage was greater than it should have been because it was likely that the first officer had pressed the wrong button on the fire bottle to extinguish the blaze and when the flight engineer tried to correct this mistake nothing happened because, by then, the power had been switched off completely during the engine shutdown drill. BOAC decided to amend the flight manuals and emergency check lists as a result of this incident to ensure it could not happen again.

The steward who had not been able to deploy the chute properly was sent for additional training and it was decided, as a result of this accident, to review the training procedures for using chutes, to ensure that all cabin crew had hands-on experience. Until this time it was usual for stewards to open doors, and deploy chutes when necessary. Stewardesses were instructed on the theory of the operation but, in practice, never touched either doors or chutes unless they worked with stewards who would allow them some practice.

Accidents to aircraft can come in all different forms and, on 1 March 1968, Whisky Echo was involved in an incident that, had it not been for the quick thinking of an air traffic controller and the BOAC pilot, could have been a disaster.

The aircraft was making a scheduled flight from New York’s Kennedy airport to Heathrow on a clear but windy day. Behind Whisky Echo a Pan Am 707 was waiting to take off and 9,000 feet from the threshold of the runway a de Havilland Twin Otter belonging to the commuter operator, Pilgrim Airlines of Groton, Connecticut, was waiting on a taxiway for clearance to turn onto the runway for its departure. The runway surface was wet as Whisky Echo, operating that day as flight BA 530, was cleared for take-off at 1634:35 GMT.

Five seconds after it began its take-off run the controller called up the Pan Am aircraft, flight PA 100, and positioned it ready for its departure. Thirty seconds after Whisky Echo confirmed it was rolling the controller calmly announced ‘Ah Speedbird 530 abort your take-off’. Whisky Echo was at this point hurtling down the runway at a speed of 123 knots and was 7,500 feet from the runway threshold. The reason for this abrupt order was that the Pilgrim Airlines crew, despite being able to hear all the instructions to the other aircraft, had decided to position themselves ready for their departure and were, at this point, turning onto the runway a mere 1,500 feet from where the BOAC 707 was bearing down upon them at great speed.

The BOAC crew managed to stop Whisky Echo and taxied it off the runway where it was met by the fire services who checked the brakes, which were extremely hot but judged to be safe. The aircraft was then taxied back to the ramp and the passengers were disembarked so that further maintenance checks could be made. Meanwhile the controller was attempting to find out what the Pilgrim Airlines crew thought it was doing. The pilot of the small aircraft seemed to be totally oblivious to the fact that not only had he endangered another aircraft, he had put himself, his aircraft and its passengers in a position where, but for the quick thinking of the controller and the skill of the BOAC pilot, they would all, almost certainly, have been killed. When the controller called him up and asked, ‘Who put you into position?’ he was still unaware that he had done anything wrong and simply replied, ‘Oh, we’re in position and holding Sir’ to which the controller countered, ‘Negative clear the runway immediately’. Only then did he appear to realize that all was not well as he answered, ‘Oh, ah roger’.

The last three incidents to happen to Whisky Echo before the one which destroyed it, give some idea of the causes and combinations of reasons that produce accidents. It is very rare that there is just one reason for a bad accident. It is usually a whole range of circumstances that combine to create the incident.

In the case of the first accident in Frankfurt the charts were found to be out of date, the most experienced of the pilots was not in charge of the aircraft at the point it hit the air bridge and the airport authorities had not ensured that the ground markings were clear and correct. In Honolulu, the most serious of the three incidents, the cause was due to a failure of an engine part which, having failed, went on to damage other engine parts and cause a fire to take hold. Had the fire bottles been deployed correctly the damage could have been limited but in both these cases the airline used the lessons it had learned to improve its safety standards as a whole.

The near miss on the runway at Kennedy airport shows that however good an airline’s procedures and safety standards might be, outside actions and circumstances sometime create accidents that simply cannot be avoided. If Whisky Echo had been further into its take-off run when the Pilgrim Airlines Twin Otter started to turn onto the runway the chances of the crew being able to abort the take-off would have been almost nonexistent.

Although airlines can and do take steps to improve methods of operation, there is very little that can be done to guarantee that a moment of distraction or a lack of concentration can be avoided and errors by anyone who works on an aircraft, on the ground or in the air, will always be the weak spot in the pursuit of greater safety.