G-ARPI remembered

[stever219]

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the crash of Trident 1C G-ARPI shortly after take off from London Heathrow with the loss of all 119 souls on board.

 

For some this remains a controversial accident; who did what and why on that ill-fated flight?  Why was the crew formed with two very inexperienced pilot's?  What is certain is that the captain, PF, was becoming increasingly incapacitated by an undetected heart condition, the aeroplane never achieved its lowest target speed, that the leading edge droops were retracted well below minimum retraction speed, that the stick push system was deliberately selected OFF and that whoever selected the drops UP did not appreciate the consequences of his actions.

 

The flight lasted less than three minutes from brakes off to impact; there were initially two survivors but both succumbed to their injuries shortly after, despite the best efforts of the emergency services to save them.

 

There wre a number of repercussions from this accident: the Trident was fitted with a baulk on the droops which would prevent their retraction with flaps up and below minimum droop retraction speed,  crew rostering practices were amended, exercising ECGs were introduced to pilot medicals and, perhaps most importantly, Cockpit Vouce Recorders were introduced.  Initially seen as a "spy in the cockpit" the CVR became one of the accident investigators' most useful resources.

 

RIP those aboard Bealine 548 this day in 1972.

[Kari Lumppio]

Sad story. No real relevance, but in Finnish language arpi means a scar.

 

Kari

[Brizeman]

And British Airways have no aircraft in the fleet with PI as the last two letters of the registration.

 

   John

[RAF4EVER]

55 minutes ago, Brizeman said:

And British Airways have no aircraft in the fleet with PI as the last two letters of the registration.

 

   John

G-ARPI Trident 1C c/n 2109

[cmatthewbacon]

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5422f154ed915d1371000365/4-1973_G-ARPI.pdf

 

RIP all on board...

best,

M.

[JohnT]

I had the great privilege to be taught for a year at Edinburgh University in the forensic medicine for law students class by the late Prof Ken Mason. I even passed the exam !!!  He was a lovely man and the leading forensic pathologist in aviation accidents

https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituary-professor-ken-mason-medical-jurisprudence-pioneer-1456658?amp

 

He performed the post mortem examinations on the aircrew in this tragic accident. It was a discussion topic in one tutorial and I had a discussion with him on this. Making allowances for memory and time (it was the mid 70’s) I recall his thinking was that the evidence from the PM examination indicated the captain had suffered a  heart related medical problem and was likely to appear to function while in fact making the wrong decisions and implementing incorrect actions.
 

The combination of:-

1 the captains overly difficult demeanour

2 the deferential attitude shown then by junior pilots to senior captains

3 the captain would probably still be appearing to others in the cockpit to be taking action albeit incorrect action

 

all might all have combined to prevent the first officer from taking control to prevent the accident. He reckoned it was one of the aircraft accidents that started the changes towards a more interventionist culture in cockpit management. 
 

Among my best memories was the Christmas lecture which had him distribute sherry to the female students and cans of beer to the guys.   
 

My abiding memory was of a lovely gentle person who was a brilliant educator 

[noelh]

Indeed John, when I was training as a pilot the most recently added written exam for ATPLs  and to my mind one of the most  interesting was 'Human Factors'. I passed easily because it was so engaging and obviously relevant. The Trident accident wasn't referenced directly but clearly it was one aspect. Prof. Ken Mason no doubt had an influence. 

 

As I recall one scenario told of a Captain who died on final approach but had such  a  fearsome  reputation his co pilot crashed  rather than object to the  obvious disaster looming. 

 

Culture is a big factor. In certain cultures deferring to authority is the norm. I  won't mention which cultures. 

 

But supposedly Australian and Irish pilots are most likely to speak up and say 'Oy mate what the F are you doing?'

 

I have experience of both.😀