On December 3, 1972, a Convair CV-990 Coronado

charter flight Air charter is the business of renting an entire aircraft (i.e., chartering) as opposed to individual aircraft seats (i.e., purchasing a ticket through a traditional airline). Regulation Charter – also called air taxi or ad hoc – flights ...

operated by

Spantax Spantax S.A. was a Spanish leisure airline headquartered in Madrid that operated from 6 October 1959 to 29 March 1988. Spantax was one of the first Spanish airlines to operate tourist charter flights between European and North American cities and ...

from

Tenerife Tenerife ( ; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands, an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Spain. With a land area of and a population of 965,575 inhabitants as of A ...

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

with 148 passengers and 7 crew crashed while taking off from Tenerife-Norte Los Rodeos Airport in Tenerife, killing all 155 passengers and crew onboard. Many of the passengers were French tourists heading on a tour of Germany.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was a Convair CV-990-30A-5 Coronado registered as EC-BZR. The aircraft was equipped with four General Electric CJ805-23 engines.

Passengers and crew

Accident

The flight was chartered by the ''Landesverband Bayerischer Omnibusunternehmer'', a community of Bavarian bus company owners. In command was Captain Daniel Núñez Ronda, a 32-year-old former Spanish Air Force pilot, who was accompanied by 36-year-old First Officer Francisco Javier Saavedra and 30-year-old Flight Engineer José Alberto Sanz. Conditions that morning were

IFR In aviation, instrument flight rules (IFR) is one of two sets of regulations governing all aspects of civil aviation aircraft operations; the other is visual flight rules (VFR). The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) ''Instrument Fly ...

with a reported visibility of about only . The flight was cleared for take-off on

runway In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...

30 at 6:45

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

. At the aircraft entered a steep

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

and soon began to descend. The left wing hit the ground about past the end of the runway, rupturing a fuel tank before the rest of the fuselage touched down. A massive explosion of the almost fully fueled tanks followed. All 155 people aboard were killed upon impact. At the time, the accident was the deadliest aircraft crash on the island of Tenerife and the deadliest to take place in Spain until surpassed by the

collision In physics, a collision is any event in which two or more bodies exert forces on each other in a relatively short time. Although the most common use of the word ''collision'' refers to incidents in which two or more objects collide with great for ...

of two Boeing 747 aircraft at the same airport five years later. It was the eighth

hull loss A hull loss is an aviation accident that damages the aircraft beyond economic repair, resulting in a total loss. The term also applies to situations where the aircraft is missing, the search for its wreckage is terminated, or the wreckage is ...

and deadliest accident involving a

Convair 990 Coronado The Convair 990 Coronado is a retired American narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body four-engined jet airliner produced between 1961 and 1963 by the Convair division of American company General Dynamics. It was a stretched version of its earlier Co ...

Investigation

The investigation was conducted by the Spanish Police’s air crash investigation council. German investigators also arrived, but were barred from investigating by the authorities. Due to the unstable political situation unfolding, authorities suspected a bomb could have brought the aircraft down. This was quickly dismissed after a close look determined no signature blast damage. A theory of

engine failure A turbine engine failure occurs when a Gas turbine, gas turbine engine unexpectedly stops producing Power (physics), power due to a malfunction other than fuel exhaustion. It often applies for aircraft, but other turbine engines can also fail, ...

was also dismissed early on. The investigators concluded that the captain had experienced a somatogyral illusion in the low visibility. The investigators also faulted the ATC controller for letting the aircraft take off in conditions it was not certified to fly in. The conditions were caused by clouds moving through the airport, a common problem. The board recommended that ATC should inform crews about the conditions via the newly developed ATIS, which was introduced about a year later. The council also recommended training on spatial illusions for pilots.

References

{{Aviation accidents and incidents in Spain Convair aircraft Aviation accidents and incidents in 1972 Aviation accidents and incidents in Spain Accidents and incidents involving the Convair 990 Coronado 1972 in Spain Spantax accidents and incidents December 1972 in Europe

Aircraft

Passengers and crew

Accident

Investigation

See also

References