TWA Flight 599
| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | March 31, 1931 |
| Summary | Structural failure |
| Site |
Bazaar Township, Chase County, Kansas, United States 38°14′09″N 96°35′12″W / 38.23583°N 96.58667°WCoordinates: 38°14′09″N 96°35′12″W / 38.23583°N 96.58667°W |
| Passengers | 6 |
| Crew | 2 |
| Fatalities | 8 (all) |
| Injuries (non-fatal) | 0 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft type | Fokker F.10 |
| Operator | Transcontinental and Western Air |
| Registration | NC999E |
| Flight origin | Kansas City, Missouri |
| Stopover | Wichita, Kansas |
| Destination | Los Angeles, California |
T&WA NC999E was a scheduled airline flight from Kansas City, Missouri, to Los Angeles, California. On March 31, 1931, the wooden-winged Fokker F.10 tri-motor airliner serving the route crashed in the Kansas prairie, killing popular sports hero Knute Rockne and seven others. The accident brought radical changes to airline regulations, operations and aircraft. The "Rockne Crash" (as it was referred to) stimulated advances in aircraft design and development, and airline industry practices. The result was a pivotal improvement in airline safety, profitability and popularity.
Transcontinental and Western Air Flight 599 was a Fokker F.10 Trimotor en route from Kansas City, Missouri, to Los Angeles on March 31, 1931. On the first leg of the flight, from Kansas City to Wichita, Kansas, the airplane crashed into an open field a few miles southwest of Bazaar, Kansas; all eight on board died, including famed football coach Knute Rockne, of the University of Notre Dame.
It is often claimed that Flight 599 went down in or shortly after a thunderstorm, but meteorological records show that there was no significant convective activity at the time.
The accident was arguably caused by the composition of the aircraft.
The wings of Fokker Trimotors were manufactured out of wood laminate; in this instance, moisture had leaked into the interior of one wing over a period and had weakened the glue bonding the structure. One spar finally failed; the wing developed uncontrolled flutter and separated from the aircraft.
Questions have been raised about the exact sequence of events in the crash, and eyewitness accounts raise further questions about the exact sequence of events and the associated technical analysis.
Among the issues speculated is that the craft may have been dealing with turbulence, or icing on the aircraft, or both—which could have resulted in flying conditions that may have led to control difficulty, and an overstressing of the wing. (As evidence, some cite the co-pilot's radio call to Wichita, an hour into the flight, saying, "The weather here is getting tough. We're going to turn around and go back to Kansas City.") Later theories conclude that the pilots thought their difficulty controlling the plane was clear-air turbulence, and the transmission was sent before they were aware of the wing's deficiency, if indeed they ever knew before the wing failed.
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Wikipedia