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Flight 1862 was scheduled to depart at 5:30 PM, but the flight
wasdelayed until 6:20 PM. At 6:22 PM, Flight 1862 departed from
runway01L on a northerly heading. Once airborne, the plane turned
to theright in order to follow the Pampus departure route, aided by
thePampus VOR/DME navigation station. Soon after the turn, at
6:27pm, above the Gooimeer, a lake near Amsterdam, a sharp bang
was heard while the aircraft was climbing through 6500
feet.Engine number three separated from the right wing of the
aircraft,damaged the wing flaps, and struck engine number four,
whichthen also separated from the wing. The two engines fell
awayfrom the plane. They attracted the attention of some
pleasureboaters who had been startled by the loud noise. The
boaters
notified the Netherlands Coastguard of two objects they had
seenfalling from the sky. Captain Fuchs made a mayday call to
airtraffic control (ATC) and indicated that he wanted to return
toSchiphol. At 6:28:45 PM, the captain reported: "El Al 1862, lost
numberthree and number four engine, number three and number
fourengine.
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At 6:35 pm local time, the Boeing 747, in nearly a ninety-degree
bank with its rightwing pointing at the ground, ploughed into two
high-rise apartment complexes inthe Bijlmermeer neighborhood, at
the corner of a building where the Groeneveencomplex met the
Klein-Kruitberg complex. The building exploded into flames
andpartially collapsed inward, destroying dozens of apartments. The
cockpit came torest east of the flats, between the building and the
viaduct of Amsterdam MetroLine 53.During the last moments of the
flight, the arrival traffic controllers made severaldesperate
attempts to contact the aircraft.At the time of the crash, two
police officers were in the Bijlmermeer checking on aburglary
report. They saw the aircraft plummet and immediately sounded an
alarm.
The first fire trucks and rescue services arrived within a few
minutes of the crash.Nearby hospitals were advised to prepare for
hundreds of casualties. The flats werepartly inhabited by
undocumented illegal immigrants, and the death toll would
bedifficult to estimate in the hours after the crash.In the days
immediately following the disaster, the bodies of the victims and
theremains of the plane were recovered from the crash site. The
remains of the plane
were transported to Schiphol for analysis. The parts were not
used by investigatorsto reconstruct the aircraft.
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In the event of excessive loads on the Boeing 747 engines or
engine pylons, the fusepins holding the engine nacelle to the wing
are designed to fracture cleanly, allowing
the engine to fall away from the aircraft without damaging the
wing or wing fuel tank.
Airliners are generally designed to remain airworthy in the
event of an engine failure,
so that the plane can be landed safely. Damage to a wing or wing
fuel tank can have
disastrous consequences. The Netherlands Aviation Safety Board
found, however, that
the fuse pins had not failed properly, but instead had suffered
metal fatigue prior tooverload failure. This sequence of
step-by-step failures caused the engine and pylon to
break free, knocking outboard engine 4 and its pylon off the
wing as well and inflicting
serious damage on the leading edge of the right wing, including
the control surfaces
(flaps) that Captain Fuchs later tried to extend in flight.
Research indicated that the plane had only managed to maintain
level flight at first due
to its high air speed (280 knots). The damage to the right wing,
resulting in reduced lift,
had made it much more difficult to keep the plane level. At 280
knots (520 km/h),
there was nevertheless sufficient lift on the right wing to keep
the plane aloft. Once
the plane had to reduce speed for landing, however, it was
doomed; there was too
little lift on the right wing to enable stable flight, and the
plane banked sharply to the
right without any chance of recovery.
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