Two engines fell off the Boeing 747 plane shortly after take off
When a plane carrying four people on board crashed, it caused a horrifically deadly aviation disaster as the aircraft struck an apartment building.
On 4 October, 1992, a freighter variant of the Boeing 747 ‘jumbo jet’ took off from Amsterdam and shortly afterwards crashed into a block of flats.
The plane was El Al Flight 1862, which had originally departed from JFK International Airport in New York and had stopped over in Amsterdam ahead of the final leg of the journey towards Tel Aviv, Israel.
There had already been problems with the flight as the aircraft’s speed had fluctuated while the autopilot had been engaged.
The crew also had issues with the radio and the plane’s third engine, which would later spell disaster.
Having crossed the Atlantic Ocean, El Al Flight 1862 landed safely in Amsterdam at around 2.40pm local time where it was refuelled and the crew changed, while another El Al employee joined as a passenger to travel to her wedding.
The cargo plane lost two engines and crashed into people’s homes. (COR/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)
Just seven minutes after taking to the skies disaster struck, as the aircraft was climbing and at 6.28pm the problematic third engine separated from the right wing of the plane.
As it fell the third engine struck the fourth, tearing it off as well.
Witnesses on the ground said they heard a sharp bang and a momentary flash of fire from the plane’s right wing before seeing two objects falling to the ground.
Some witnesses to the disaster initially thought they were people parachuting out of the 747, but on closer inspection could see they were actually two of the plane’s engines.
On board El Al Flight 1862 the crew sent out an emergency warning and tried to turn back to the airport for a landing, thinking their engines had failed but not realising they’d been torn off altogether.
Too high to make an emergency landing at first, they started circling the airport to lower their altitude and attempt a landing but due to the damage the aircraft had sustained they started to lose control of the plane.
The site of the plane crash which killed all four people on board and 39 on the ground. (Patrick Robert/Sygma/CORBIS/Sygma via Getty Images)
Fourteen minutes after the plane had taken off it crashed between two blocks of flats in Amsterdam.
In the last contact from the flight the plane’s first officer said: “Going down, 1862, going down, going down, copied, going down.”
In the background the captain could be heard giving the order to lower the aircraft’s landing gear.
As the 747 crashed towards the ground, air traffic control tried several times to re-establish contact and when it impacted, the control tower told air traffic control: “It is over.”
All four people on board the plane were killed, as were 39 people on the ground at the impact site.
On top of that, 26 people were injured, with 11 requiring hospital treatment.
A subsequent investigation into the causes of the crash found that fuse pins holding the engine to the wing had been overloaded and suffered for it, as normally if an engine falls from a plane the pins are meant to allow it to be done cleanly so it doesn’t cause further damage to the aircraft.
Haunting last words of pilot who let his children in cockpit to control plane that crashed and killed 75 passengers
All 75 people on board died when Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed at 160mph
The final words of a pilot who died in a plane crash after he let his children at the controls were recorded by the aircraft’s black box.
On 23 March, 1994, Aeroflot Flight 593 from Moscow to Hong Kong crashed which resulted in the deaths of all 75 people on board’
Split decision turns deadly
It was the first international flight for the children of pilot Yaroslav Vladimirovich Kudrinsky, and this led to the disaster which ultimately caused the plane to crash.
Kudrinsky let his children into the cockpit and allowed both his son and daughter to sit in the pilot’s chair.
His 13-year-old daughter Yana was first, and her father adjusted the autopilot to make her think she was actually steering the aircraft.
The last words of a pilot who let his children into the cockpit were captured on the black box. (Robert Smith/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The fatal 30 seconds
When 15-year-old Eldar got into the pilot’s chair he moved the plane’s control column enough to cause parts of the autopilot to switch off for 30 seconds, with the boy noticing that the flight was banking rather sharply to the right.
The pilots missed a warning light which would have told them what had happened to the autopilot, with Kudrinsky getting his son away from the plane’s controls.
From there the pilots attempted to regain control of the aircraft, successfully pulling the plane out of a dive but overcorrecting until the flight was climbing almost vertically, stalling it.
This resulted in the plane spinning and dropping back down to the ground.
While the pilots were able to level out the wings of the plane they had lost too much altitude by that point and crashed.
Harrowing final moments
The black box recording of the aircraft’s final moments was discovered as part of the investigation into the crash.
The final words from the pilot recorded him attempting to level the plane out of a dive. (Youtube/FatalBreakdown)
It recounted that in the flight’s final moments Kudrinsky was shouting at his son to get away from the controls.
He said: “Eldar, get away. Go to the back, go to the back Eldar! You see the danger don’t you?
“Go away, go away Eldar! Go away, go away. I tell you to go away!”
From there the pilots attempted to regain control of the aircraft, and the last part of the flight recorded was the attempt to pull out of the second dive.
The box recorded Kudrinsky saying: “Get out now, all is normal. Pull up gently. Gently! Gently I say!”
Just two minutes and six seconds after the events unfolded, Flight 593 crashed in a flat altitude at high vertical speed at around 160mph, in the Kuznetsk Alatau Mountain range in the Kemerovo Oblast region of southern Russia.
The aftermath
Despite Aeroflot initially denying the pilots were at fault, it was forced to change its account of events when a leaked copy of the cockpit voice recorder transcript was published.
Investigations found no evidence of technical failure, concluding the crash was most likely caused by the children being allowed to take control of the flight.
The aircraft was completely destroyed, killing everyone onboard.
