When a Russian Airliner Flew Into Cuban Power Lines

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12/05/23 • 57 min

On final approach to Havana’s José Martí International Airport in 1977, the Aeroflot Ilyushin IL-62M with 69 people on board, descended below the clouds and the pilot immediately was confronted with power lines between the plane and the runway – and the runway was close. The pilot attempted to pull the nose up to avoid the powerlines, but the emergency maneuver was not enough – the plane clipped the power lines and the steel-reinforced cables severed the vertical stabilizer from the rest of the plane. Rendered uncontrollable, the plane pitched sharply down and to the right, impacting the ground within seconds of contact with the power lines. The plane burst into flames, and though the rear of the fuselage was relatively intact, there were only two survivors.
What, exactly, happened on this day, some 46 years ago? An airliner from one of the world’s largest airlines clipping powerlines? A rookie mistake like this seems impossible. How did – how could – this happen? There aren’t many details, but the Radar Contact Lost team examines the details and tries to fill in the blanks.

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When a Boeing 707 Broke Apart in Mid-air Near Mt. Fuji

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At just before 2 o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday, March 5, 1966, British Overseas Airways Corporation Flight 911, took off from Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport. Bound for Hong Kong, the Boeing 707 broke apart in mid-air, just 15 minutes after departure. The crash left no survivors. The weather conditions were not an issue – at least, nothing obvious: there were no thunderstorms, no typhoons, there was no rain or snow. In fact, it was a sunny, clear, cloud-free day. It was so nice that the crew had requested a clearance so that they could stray from their intended route to Hong Kong, so that the captain could give the passengers a glorious view of the snow-capped and iconic Mt. Fuji. It was while viewing Mt. Fuji in this “sightseeing mode,” that Flight 911 met its demise.

What happened to Flight 911? What caused the mid-air break-up? Was it a bomb? Did the plane strike the mountainside? Was it a mechanical failure of some kind? Was the plane unsafe? Had the crew made a mistake? Or, despite the sunny skies, was the weather to blame.
In this episode, the Radar Contact Lost team will examine what happened. We’ll look at the airplane, the pilot, the airline and Mt. Fuji itself; we’ll also take a dive into the phenomenon known as Clear Air Turbulence - not only what it is, but how, why and where it occurs and why, on this day over Japan, BOAC Flight 911 was ripped apart in midair.

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When Colgan Air Flight 3407 Fell Out of the Sky in Buffalo, New York

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On the evening of February 12, 2009, Colgan Air Flight 3407 was on final approach to Runway 23 at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport in Buffalo, New York. It was dark, it was snowing, it was windy and the pilots had noted the accumulation of ice on the wings and windshield of the 78-seat regional airliner. Still, the pilots were not under undue stress as the cockpit voice recorders indicated a casual, unhurried atmosphere, there was even some unrelated chit-chat on the flight deck. Then, just moments before landing, air traffic controllers noticed the plane was no longer on their radar screens. Flight 3407 was down for reasons unknown.

In the post-crash investigation, the most likely cause of the crash – the weather (including the snow, the wind and the ice) was quickly dismissed. If not the weather, then what happened to Colgan Air Flight 3407 that caused it to fall out of the night sky and claim the lives of all on board and one on the ground?