Partnair Flight 394
LN-PAA in 1987
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| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | 8 September 1989 |
| Summary | Improper maintenance, rudder malfunction due to substandard parts |
| Site | 18 km north of Hirtshals, Denmark |
| Passengers | 50 |
| Crew | 5 |
| Fatalities | 55 (all) |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft type | Convair CV-580 |
| Operator | Partnair |
| Registration | LN-PAA [1] |
| Flight origin | Oslo Airport, Fornebu, Oslo, Norway |
| Destination | Hamburg Airport, Hamburg, West Germany |
Partnair Flight 394 was a chartered flight which crashed on 8 September 1989 off the coast of Denmark 18 km north of Hirtshals. All 50 passengers and 5 crew members on board the aircraft perished, making it the deadliest civilian aviation accident involving an all-Norwegian airline company. It was also the highest death toll of any aviation accident involving a Convair 580, and the biggest aeroplane accident in Denmark. It was caused by use of unapproved aircraft parts in repairs and maintenance.
The aircraft, registered LN-PAA, was a 36-year-old Convair CV-580 operated by the charter airline Partnair. The plane had switched owners several times and had various modifications. The aircraft had multiple previous registrations, N73128, EC-FDP, PK-GDS, HR-SAX, JA101C, N770PR and C-GKFT and had been rebuilt after a landing accident in 1978. The most significant modification was a change from piston engines to turboprop engines in 1960; this added more horsepower to the aircraft. A Canadian company that specialized in servicing Convairs was the owner of the aircraft before Partnair acquired it. LN-PAA was one of the most recently acquired aircraft in the Partnair fleet. At the time of the crash, there were 2 other Convair 580 in the Partnair fleet.
At the time of the accident Partnair was in financial difficulty. The airline's debts were such that, on the day of the accident flight, Norwegian aviation authorities had notified Norwegian airports to not allow Partnair aircraft to depart since Partnair had not paid several charges and fees.
The Convair 580 aircraft was en route from Oslo Airport, Fornebu, Norway to Hamburg Airport, West Germany. The passengers were employees of the shipping company Wilhelmsen Lines who were flying to Hamburg for the launching ceremony of a new ship. Half of the employees of the company's head office were on board. Leif Terje Løddesøl, an executive of Wilhelmsen, said that the atmosphere in the company was "very very good" prior to the accident flight. He said that some of the employees "maybe" had been to prior naming ceremonies, which he described as "quite exciting." A regular employee on the flight, one of the top-performing employees in the company, had been asked to give the speech during the launching ceremony. Løddesøl said that it was not often that a "normal person" in the company was chosen to read the speech at the naming ceremony.
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