Talk:KLM Constellation air disaster 1948

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I've edited this a little bit for clarity and flow, trying to make the sequence of events a little more clear, mostly rearranging paragraphs, with very minor alterations to text.

A few questions I have:

These two sentences seem to contradict each other: As the flight had taken off late, they had not picked up the radio message broadcast by Prestwick airfield informing them of this [the 600-ft ceiling].

The routine weather reports broadcast from Prestwick had given a cloud cover of 700 feet. No new forecasts, which would have told Parmentier of the expected decreased cloud cover were broadcast.

How should this be reconciled -- did Prestwick send a (non-morse) update on the weather or not? I gather not, given board of enquiry findings. Should the first of these sentences be removed then?

The routine broadcats refered to are the standard weather reports sent out by the airport throughout the day and picked up Schipol's met bureau and reported to Parmentier. The second message was sent via radio when Prestwick realised the sudden deterioration in the weather.

That makes sense, thank you.

Secondly, are these accurate?

Three miles to the north-east of the runway, rising to over 600 feet, were a set of wireless masts. Three miles inland ran a series of electricity pylons and high-tension cables...

Are these three miles in different directions? (Which way is inland from the airport?) At first I thought this was a duplicated sentence and started to remove one, but given that the "wireless masts" were 600ft and the others were 450 feet, they seemed distinct. Can this be clarified?

The inland refers to the reciprocal of the line between the airport and the sea. And the wireless masts and pylons are both distinct, yes.

Yes, but is the "inland" direction North, South, Southwest? There's not enough info for me to build a mental picture of the area -- I've never been to Prestwick, don't know which direction the sea is from the airport, and whether this description means the wireless masts are close to the pylons, or in the opposite direction.

After checking an aviation map and google maps: The runway 26 has since been replaced by a the new runway 21, that starts near the end of the old runway 14/32. The old runway 32 has been updated to runway 31 and extended to around 9800 ft. You can still see the traces of the old runway 26, it is now a large taxiway crossing runway 13/31 near the middle. Hence, in the 1948 situation, the two runways cross each other near the middle, and a missed landing would therefore provide a clear visual of the other crossing runway.

The radio towers are still there, on 200ft ground and extending to 677ft, 3-4 km straight north of the runway center. However, reading the story, this tower seems to have no relevance for the accident.

The power lines runs north/souths about 4 km due east (inland) of the end of the old runway 32. However, the ground rapidly slopes up to several hundred ft inland. Given the low altitude of the airplane, other ground obstacles would have soon have hit the airplane anyway.

Prestwick airport is in a valley near the sea. No matter how you would fly around the airport, at 450 ft the surrounding hills would be extremely dangerous. It is amazing that an experienced pilot attempt this in low visibility.

Given that the pilot flew at a hazardously low altitude in very low visibility, and given that the story suggests that the pilot was looking for cloud base as altitude reference instead of safe altitude from the plane's altimeter, it altogether suggest that the pilot's part of the responsability for the accident is much higher than the court ruling suggests. Perhaps these are more sources out there that can explain this intriguing ruling of the court.

Uffe 12:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Thirdly, this seems unclear:

However three miles out Parmentier decided that the wind probably was too strong for landing on the main runway [32] and decided to overshoot and land on the alternate. He overflew Runway 26, the lights of which he could now see, climbed to a height of 450 feet and extended the landing gear ready for landing.

Should that be he overflew runway 32, not 26? Or did he overfly both runways and come around for a third pass? Or am I misunderstanding "overflew" -- is that supposed to mean he was lining up for landing on 26?

That bit I might have gotten confused as I wrote it up, will have to check. However my main source is in my room at uni, so shall have to wait until next week. - Chrism 19:13, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! --Catherine 18:09, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt replies -- I enjoyed looking over this article and learning something new.  :) Catherine