Braniff Flight 250

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**Braniff Airways Flight 250**
Summary
Date	August 6, 1966
Type	In-flight structural failure
Site	Falls City, Nebraska
Fatalities	42
Injuries	0
Aircraft
Aircraft type	BAC 1-11-203AE
Operator	Braniff Airways
Tail number	N1553
Passengers	38
Crew	4
Survivors	0

Braniff Airways Flight 250 crashed near Falls City, Nebraska, on August 6, 1966. It was en route to Omaha, Nebraska, from Kansas City, Missouri. Thirty-eight passengers and four crew members were killed in the crash.

[edit] Overview

The plane was a BAC 1-11-203AE, registration number N1553.

Flight 250 departed Kansas City at 22:55 on an IFR clearance to Omaha at FL200. However, the crew asked if they could remain at 5000 feet because of the weather. The flight remained at 6000 feet until permission was received at 23:06 to descend to 5000 feet. At 23:08 the crew contacted a company flight that had just departed Omaha. This flight reported moderate to light turbulence. About four minutes later the aircraft entered an area of an active squall line. The One-Eleven violently accelerated upward and in a left roll. At this time the right tailplane and the fin failed. The aircraft then pitched nose down and within one or two seconds the right wing failed as well. The plane tumbled down in flames until stabilizing into a flat spin before impacting the ground.

Braniff regulations prohibited a plane from being dispatched into an area with a solid line of thunderstorms; however the company forecast was somewhat inaccurate with respect to the number and intensity of thunderstorms and the intensity of the associated turbulence.

The probable cause was in-flight structural failure caused by extreme turbulence during operation of the aircraft in an area of avoidable hazardous weather.

Dr. Ted Fujita, a recognized weather researcher and professor of meteorology at the University of Chicago, was hired by British Aircraft Corporation, the manufacturer of the BAC One-Eleven, to study how the weather affected the jet. Dr. Fujita is recognized as the discoverer of downbursts and microbursts and also developed the Fujita scale, which differentiates tornado intensity and links tornado damage with wind speed.

A memorial was placed at the crash site in a farm field northeast of Falls City, Nebraska, on August 6, 2006, the 40th anniversary of the crash.

This crash is covered in detail in the book Air Disaster (Vol. 1) by Macarthur Job, Matthew Tesch.