Send us a text

On Saturday, December 28, 1946, a Lockheed Constellation airliner, known as the Cairo Skychief, was beginning the landing sequence at Shannon Airport on the western coast of Ireland. It was 2 o’clock in the morning so, naturally, it was dark. But it was also quite cloudy with low ceilings, fog and light rain – the visibility of the crew was restricted quite a bit. But this crew was experienced and the airport, despite being relatively new, was well known amongst international aircrews, as it was – and is – used regularly for both westbound and eastbound Transatlantic air traffic. Its location puts it in line with most direct flights to and from Canada and the United States.

Yet oddly, as the crew was given clearance to land by the Shannon control tower and the plane turned toward the runway, the lights of the airport went dark. As the pilot struggled to compute this unprecedented turn of events, the left wingtip struck the ground. The aircraft then quickly crashed and caught fire.

Like so many other aircraft accidents that are featured here on Radar Contact Lost, the weather at the time of the crash played a key role, yet it was not the sole cause – or even the primary cause of the crash. It would take months for investigators to understand what happened, but when the accident report was completed and made public, and the primary cause of the crash was revealed, it became clear that there was something much more significant than the weather that caused this crash. Of all the aviation accidents we’ve looked at on this podcast, we’ve never had a primary cause of an aviation accident like this one.

Send us a text

It was the early morning hours of Wednesday, August 14, 2013, when a United Parcel Service cargo jet slammed into the ground about one mile short of the runway at the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, in Birmingham, Alabama, located in the southeastern United States.

Even though the plane was more than a mile from the airport, the crash occurred on undeveloped airport property – the plane did not crash into a neighborhood or a business district, or land on a highway; the pilot and co-pilot were killed, but there were no other fatalities or injuries related to this crash.

Though the low clouds in the area certainly contributed to this crash by visually obscuring the airport from the crew, there were plenty of other things that added to a list of crash-contributors, including several mistakes made by the captain and the first officer, as well as the dispatcher for United Parcel Service. Take the weather out of the equation, and all the other errors that brought down this Airbus were the result of mistakes made by aviation professionals.

Like so many other aircraft accidents that are featured here on Radar Contact Lost, this was a needless and avoidable crash. The sequence of events that led to this crash began before the plane ever took-off.

Send us a text

The plane at the center of this episode of Radar Contact Lost was in a bad way: One engine was on fire – there were three others, but the plane was struggling to maintain altitude. In addition to the engine fire, it was experiencing turbulence and severe icing, it was crossing the mountains at night, and in the middle of winter storm. As if that wasn’t enough, the plane was also lost. It appears the crew didn’t realize they were lost, but they were well off-course, just the same.

This alarming situation was taking place over western Canada in a 4-engine propeller airliner in the middle 1950s. The plane had no empty seats. The passengers were likely unaware of the dire situation, though many had likely seen the engine fire and were aware that one engine was not working.

In this episode, we’ll talk about the plane and the mountain that the plane crashed into. We'll also talk about the memorial to the victims of Trans Canada Flight 810-9 and what it was like to be a passenger on a commercial airliner in the 1950s.

I'll also share the meaning behind a weather term that I’ve noticed a lot of television weather forecasters use – and that they use it many times without an explanation – or at least without much of an explanation. The term is, “the atmosphere is capped,” or “the atmosphere is uncapped.” I’ll explain what a capped or uncapped atmosphere is all about.