A similar Vickers Viking operated by British Eagle in 1960 |
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| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | 9 August 1961 |
| Type | Controlled flight into terrain |
| Site | Holta, Strand, Norway |
| Passengers | 36 |
| Crew | 3 |
| Fatalities | 39 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft type | Vickers 610 Viking 3B |
| Operator | Cunard Eagle Airways |
| Tail number | G-AHPM |
| Flight origin | London Heathrow, United Kingdom |
| Destination | Stavanger Airport, Sola |
The Holtaheia Accident (Norwegian: Holtaheia-ulykken) was a controlled flight into terrain accident on 9 August 1961 at Holta in Strand, Norway. The British Eagle Vickers 610 Viking 3B Lord Rodney was en-route from London, United Kingdom to Stavanger Airport, Sola on an AIR Tours charter flight taking a school group for a camping holiday. The aircraft was making an instrument landing when it crashed 54 km (34 mi) northeast of Stavanger. The accident killed all 39 people on board.
The 36 passengers were a school class of boys aged 13 to 16 and two masters from Lanfranc Secondary Modern School for Boys. It was at the time the deadliest aviation accident in Norway.[1][2]
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The Viking left London at 13:29 on what was an estimated two and a half hour charter flight.[3] Between 16:24 and 16:30 it crashed 18 nautical miles north-east of the airport on to Holteheia, a steep mountainside at an elevation of 1600 feet.[3] The crash site was 30 feet below the summit.[4]
The aircraft was destroyed and an intense fuel and oil fire followed the impact.[3] The search for the aircraft included an RAF Shackleton and Norwegian Navy ships investigating the fjords in the area.[5] The wreckage was found fifteen hours after the crash by a Norwegian Air Force helicopter, 15 miles east from the ILS track.
The aircraft was a twin piston-engined Vickers 610 Viking 3B serial number 152 and registered in the United Kingdom as G-AHPM.[6] It first flew on 2 January 1947 and was delivered new to British European Airways.[6]
The report into the crash put the cause down to "a deviation from the prescribed flight path for reasons unknown".[7]
Thirty-three of the boys and one master were buried together at a communial grave at Mitcham Road cemetery in Croydon on 17 August 1961.[8]
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