Viscount Over Rongotai Runway; None Hurt

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30059, 18 February 1963, Page 11

Viscount Over Rongotai Runway; None Hurt

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, February 17. Forty-one persons Were lucky to escape injury when their Viscount airliner overshot the runway and slewed over a bank at the southern end of Wellington airport about 4 p.m. today. After a fast, steep approach, the Viscount levelled out, but made a later touchdown than usual. The pilot, Captain A. L. Baggott, tried to cut speed by throwing it into a ground loop or broadside.

Dripping fuel from a damaged port wing, the airliner, City of Dunedin, dug into the embankment, only a few feet above a busy roadway, after skidding 200 yards over grass and gravel and crashing through a wire safety fence.

The 37 passengers were assisted from the aircraft by Captain Baggot, First Officer R W. Marris. and the hostesses, Mrs A. Brown and Miss A. Palmer Motorists and nearby surf lifesavers assisted as crash tenders raced to spray the area with foam.

Showing little more than the effects of a slight shaking. the passengers were taken by bus to the terminal building. After the mishap, aircraft were diverted to Paraparaumu and Palmerston North.

The damaged aircraft was taken to a hangar at 8 pun. after a two-hour struggle to raise it from the embankment.

Mr D. A. Patterson, general manager of the National Airways Corporation, said that the cost of damage had not been estimated tonight. An official inquiry into the accident would begin tomorrow, he added. Mr O. O'Brien, chief accident inspector for the Air Department, surveyed the scene. Little Damage Unless some structural damage is discovered, the plane should soon be serviceable again. Observers at the scene could see that the blades of the starboard propellers were buckled, but the tvheels and even the starboard wing seemed to have withstood the stresses of the accident. The flight—No. 143 from Auckland—was about an hour late at Wellington. The City of Dunedin arrived shortly after another Viscount, from Christchurch, was observed to take up most of the runway in landing. There was cloud and mist round some of the harbour hills, but weather conditions were operational at the airport. The wind had been blowing lightly from the south, but was reported by one observer to be changing. “Too Fast” Stephen Berry, aged 17, of Hataitai, which overlooks the northern approach to the airport, said he watched the landing through a three-inch telescope. He thought the earlier aircraft's landing was "close." With little wind resistance, the Viscount from Auckland seemed to be coming in too fastt and dropping steeply. He said the plane seemed well up the runway—past the second taxiway—when it touched down on the wet surface. As it got to the stripes at the Lyall Bay end of the runway, the pilot seemed to be trying to turn to port, but the airliner fail-

ed to respond fully until the nose wheel was over the concrete at the end of the runway.

The plane slewed to the left, its starboard wing slashing open the safety fence. Then it slipped five feet down the embankment leading to the coastal road below. As it sprawled with its tail on the grassy end of the runway, the starboard wing lay on the side of this road.

Crash tenders immediately spread foam about the area, and ambulances deshed to the scene. Crowds gathered from the road, which winds past the end of the runway and connects the Lyall Bay area with Moa Point and the harbour heads. Steep Approach

A witness of the mishap from the airport observation deck, Mr L. Campbell, of Auckland, said it was the steepness of the aircraft’s approach which first caught his eye. "He levelled out all right, but I felt he had left it too late to touch down,” Mr Campbell said. “When the plane got to the far end of the runway it swerved around and heeled over.

"It happened very slowly. The plane looked graceful and there was no noise. While the plane was starting to swerve I heard the fire alarm bells ring.” Three Auckland fashion agency associates, Miss S. Browne, Mr A. P. Everard and Mr R. Hill, who were seated close to the starboard wing, described their view of the incident. “I commented on the

beautiful landing the pilot made,” said Mr Everard. "Then the plane began to swerve and went over the bank.'

“It all happened very slowly—in fact, when the wing turned round over the fence, we wondered whether the plane would stay there. We sat and looked at the bank below till the plane went over.”

Mr Everard said there was no panic in the passenger cabin. He thought, more concern was caused by the delay in announcing city transport and other arrangements, because all luggage had to be left on the aircraft. Nearly Hit Car

A Kilbirnie man, Mr I. B. Sanders, had a narrow escape. He was driving past the end of the runway when he heard a loud, roaring noise above him. Instinct made him accelerate—and perhaps saved his life. The Viscount’s wing swept across the road just 20 yards behind him.

The airport closed today after the accident because ground markings had been obscured by the skidding Viscount. N.A.C. officials were hoping tonight that normal operations would be resumed tomorrow.

Built to Viscount specifications, the runway has an over-all length, including concrete over-runs, of 5750 feet.

There has been only one other incident involving a civil airliner since the airport was opened to civil traffic in mid-1960. In September last year, an N.A.C. Viscount

burst its tyres and trailed sparks in a landing mishap. No-one was injured.

At the pageant celebrating the airport’s official opening late in 1959, a Vulcan bomber of the Royal Air Force undershot the runway while attempting a landing from the south. Its wheel hit soft earth not far from the place where the City of Dunedin came to rest tonight. The bomber was forced to make a crash landing at Ohakea. Again no-one was injured.