A World War Two Era sea-plane went down, killing 20.
The Chalk's Ocean Airways plane -- a twin-engine Grumman G-73T Turbine Mallard -- went down around 2:30 p.m. after taking off from Miami for the island of Bimini in the Bahamas.
The Coast Guard said 19 bodies were found. The 1940s-era plane was carrying two crew members and 18 passengers, including three infants, authorities said.
Chalk's has been offering this unique service for decades. Founded prior to the great depression, it has had a solid safety record, and has to considered among the legends in the US Airline industry.
UPDATE
The investigation is moving quickly, failure of the right wing.
Tags
Chalk's Airways Miami Airlines
2 comments:
Wikipedia has an entry on Chalk's Ocean Airways Flight 101.
Using the tail number (N2969), when you query the NTSB database with the number as Registration Number, three incidents dated 2/10/1984, 4/17/1984 and 8/14/1987 are recorded at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Airsafe.com's Form for Querying the NTSB Accident Database
What this means is that non-fatal air incidents occurred on flights of the aircraft with the same tail number as the registration number registered at the NTSB as the Grumman G-73T.
The "T" designation in the model number of the aircraft indicates the retrofit of the Pratt & Witney-Canada PT6A turboprop engine.
On Feb. 10, 1984, the flight control system suffered a total failure of the elevator trim/tab control.
On April 17, 1984, the airplane hit a submerged object and the nose wheel collapsed.
On August 14, 1987, another incident occurred but no details are given.
It would be of note to find out what happened on August 14, 1987 to see if it might have caused structural damage to the aircraft or was caused by stress failure.
When "Grumman" and "G-73T" is entered into the Aircraft Make and Model fields respectively in the form above, the NTSB database shows that over the past 45 years, 15 incidents occurred with only one being fatal.
Thus, Flight 101 becomes the 16th incident and the second fatal one involving the Grumman G-73T over the past 45 years.
Given the data from the NTSB database, the Grumman G-73T is relatively safe.
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalk%27s_Ocean_Airways_Flight_101
Airsafe.com's form to NTSB database:
http://www.airsafe.com/events/accbymod.htm
Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt_&_Whitney_Canada_PT6
However, Chalk's Ocean Airway shows up in the past 3 recorded incidents.
My consolation to survivors of the 18 passengers and 2 pilots of Flight 101, especially the 11 Bimini Island residents and their family, friends and relatives.
Post a Comment