WHAT’S THE STORY?
IT was 70 years ago today that a Lockheed Constellation aircraft owned by Dutch airline KLM ploughed into a field near Prestwick Airport, killing all 40 people on board.
It was Scotland’s worst air disaster to that point and remained the worst until the Lockerbie bombing of December, 1988.
Due probably to the fact that only one British citizen was aboard, the disaster is rarely remembered, though some local people have strong memories of the crash and its aftermath.
WHAT HAPPENED?
ON October 20, 1948, a scheduled overnight flight from Amsterdam to New York via Iceland was due to land at Prestwick Airport in Ayrshire for refuelling.
The aircraft was a Lockheed Constellation, a popular propeller-driven airliner type of which more than 850 were built, with many of the earlier ‘Connies’, as they were nicknamed, seeing service as transporters in World War II.
Originally inspired by Howard Hughes for his Trans World Airlines, the Constellation had a distinctive tail with three fins and was pressurised so that it could fly above the clouds.
That night, however, the aircraft – official designation PH-TEN and named Nijmegen after the Dutch city – encountered heavy cloud over Prestwick and what should have been a routine landing became a catastrophe.
KLM’s chief pilot Captain Koened D Parmentier was in charge with former RAF flier Kevin O’Brien as his co-pilot. Parmentier was vastly experienced and had himself drafted safety instructions for the airline’s pilots which stressed that Prestwick should not be used when cloud cover was below 700ft.
Had the flight left Schiphol on time – it was delayed for 40 mins to take on freight for Iceland – the probability is that the accident would not have happened, but a tragic set of circumstances then led to the disaster.
THE CIRCUMSTANCES?
THE weather forecast given to Parmentier by the Dutch meteorologists incorrectly predicted improving weather, but much more important was the message sent out by Prestwick just after 9pm stating that cloud cover was falling fast. Because of the delay, the wireless operator on board Nijmegen was still on the ground at Schiphol and did not hear the warning.
Arriving over Prestwick, Parmentier made a ground radar approach to main Runway 32 but aborted the landing due to heavy crosswinds. The aircraft could have flown on to Shannon in Ireland or even back to Schiphol, but Parmentier decided to try another landing on a different runway, number 26 which did not have ground radar. He was unaware that two airliners had already aborted landings at Prestwick earlier that night.
Circling to try and land, co-pilot O’Brien confirmed they had a visual sighting on Runway 26, and commenced their downwind leg to land. Parmentier misjudged the time it would need to land and at that point they flew into thick cloud
some 300ft above ground. The KLM charts they had – copied from US Air Force charts and not the Ordnance Survey – did not show the power line 450ft up on a hillside into which they flew.
The aircraft survived the collision but caught fire and Parmentier and O’Brien attempted to crash land, only to smash into a field at Auchinweet Farm some three miles east of Prestwick at 11.30pm.
Eyewitness Constable William Halliday said: “There was a bang and a flash and the whole place lit up.” Images of the wreckage can be viewed on Youtube.
WHO DIED?
OF the 30 passengers and 10 crew on board, 34 people including a baby were found to be dead when medical staff finally arrived at the wreckage more than an hour after the crash.
Five people lived for a few hours after the crash but succumbed to their injuries in hospital on October 21, and the 40th and final victim died of his burns four days later.
The dead included both pilots, KLM co-founder Edgar Fuld, Dutch diplomat Bert Sas who warned Britain of Hitler’s plans to invade France in October, 1939, and German aristocrat Prince Alfred of Hohenlohe-Warburg.
Some £5000 worth of diamonds – worth about £175,000 in today’s money – were found in the wreckage.
No memorial plaque exists at the crash site or airport.
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