Talk:Air Canada Flight 621

Untitled
Which airport? --203.101.18.64 17:10, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

YYZ - Then called Toronto Malton.

What does "on the flare" mean? [unsigned]

The pilot wanted to manually deploy the spoilers to spoil the lift from the wings immediately after the plane was on the ground. The co-pilot wanted to do that "on the flare", when the nose is lifted immediately before contact with the ground to slow the descent and provide a soft landing.

I will add that the article contains the following sentence: " The flight engineer, Harry Gordon Hill,[11] correctly called for the spoiler deployment as evidenced in the CVR transcript." This is incorrect. [11] is an article in the Brampton Guardian which makes no such mention of anything Hill said. Perhaps the transcript itself ("[13]") is meant. Andyvphil (talk) 07:15, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't get it
What was the point of doing the flares? Do flares often cause disasters? Thanks. A stroHur  ricane  00  1 (Talk+Contribs+Ubx) 18:36, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Flaring is a very important maneuvre, it has to be done in every landing. Read the article Landing, especially the part "For aircraft or birds, landing is generally accomplished by gradually tapering down airspeed and lift. The first phase is the flare, where the rate of descent will be reduced by adopting a nose-up attitude...".
 * The problem with this flight was the early deployment of the spoilers, that caused a sudden loss of lift on the wings.--Vittau 05:17, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

crash site
I've edited the infobox to reflect the fact that the crash itself took place in Brampton. While takeoff may have been from what is now Pearson Int'l in what was then the Town of Malton, the crash and fatalities did not take place on airport grounds. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.99.95.73 (talk) 23:58, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The takeoff was in Montreal. There was a touch-and-go in Malton. The crash site was as I understand it in neither Brampton nor Malton, though it has since been incorporated in Brampton. (Emphasis: This could be wrong.) How this kind of location name change is usually handled I do not know. Andyvphil (talk) 07:24, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Exact Cause?
I just watched an epsiode of Disasters of the century which claimed that the cause was confusion over the controls for deploying the spoilers, and reading the reference at ASN[] seems to match much of what DotC said.

Apparently the DC-8 had two separate controls for arming the automatic deployment system and the manual deployment, and the copilot inadvertently used the manual deploy control instead of simply arming them. The program said that the fact that the controls were so separate, and that the spoilers could be deployed while in flight were both considered design defects. From my reading of the reference at ASN, that article appears to match the episode of DotC.

So I see two issues with this, firstly the problem wasn't that the spoilers were armed and then deployed, but that they were simply deployed.

Secondly, the article implies that the cause was all pilot error, when the cause was at least partially design issues, which seems to be supported by the FAA directives issued after this accident and the similar 1973 incident.

Before I change the article, am I just blowing smoke here, or am I right to think that it's not reflecting the actual events?

Gorillatheape (talk) 05:00, 11 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The DC-8 ground spoiler control is just one lever. It is SOP to arm it in flight, when the gear is lowered for landing.  That is done simply by pulling up on the spoiler lever.  When the plane lands and the wheels spin up, the spoiler lever will then move all the way back, and that deploys all of the ground spoilers on top of the wings.  Purpose is to kill the lift, so that braking will be much more efficient. EditorASC (talk) 19:01, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

My understanding is that it was indeed pilot error and multiple mistakes were made.

- First of all the spoilers are supposed to be armed on approach. By arming it on the flare when the plane is over the runway (FO's preference) or on the ground (captains preference) they were breaking the rules.

- The FO not only armed the spoiler on the flare, he also deployed it, which are 2 separate motions with the lever. This was a huge mistake (deploying it) because it killed the lift of the plane causing it to slam into the runway severely damaging the plane. The captain had to apply full thrust to lessen impact but they still hit hard enough to lose an engine, part of wing and damaged fuel tanks. With all the thrust and speed and not knowing how badly damaged they were, they decided to go around. Perhaps they could have better ascertained the damage.

- One of the reasons the FO might have done a dual arm and deploy is because that is what he usually did when he flew with the captain as the FO. Except he did it on the ground. The captain asked for the arming on the flare.. which was unusual... it is what the captain usually did when the FO was flying. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.103.75 (talk) 02:07, 31 August 2012 (UTC)



- Another mistake imo is to think that arming on the flare could be an option. If ever there was a dangerous time to do it, it would be on the flare. You are too close to the ground in case the spoilers are accidently deployed. If this had happened on approach, they could have recovered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.103.75 (talk) 01:48, 31 August 2012 (UTC)


 * "The FO not only armed the spoiler on the flare, he also deployed it, which are 2 separate motions with the lever."
 * Nope. He just deployed the spoilers. One motion. Arming required moving the lever in the other direction, which he did not do. (If armed the spoilers deployed when landing was detected. But since the spoilers were already manually deployed that was n/a.) Andyvphil (talk) 07:43, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, my recollection is that the standard procedure was to arm the spoilers early in final approach. Then, the spin-up of the nose-wheel on landing would automatically deploy the spoilers, keeping the plane on the ground. The captain's concern was that a bird-strike, for example, could spin up the lowered nose-wheel and deploy the armed spoilers before landing. Thus, his change in procedure that led to the outcome he was trying to prevent... NitPicker769 (talk) 21:02, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Nit-pick: Not (just?) the nose-wheel. The deployment-if-armed required landing strut compression, as I understand it (or maybe main wheel spin). So in fact a bird strike couldn't have caused spoiler deployment. Yes, the check list called for arming earlier than either pilot preferred. Andyvphil (talk) 07:43, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Having studied the documentation on this accident myself too (quite a few years back), I agree with the Wikipedia article as it now stands. At most, design deficiency can be a contributing factor, but not the cause. The nose-wheel comments above, while making some sense re bird strikes, don't jive overall because the spoilers should be (and always are by my observations) deployed immediately after main gear touchdown, long before the nose gear touchdown. Thus, any automated spoiler deployment (which is unknown to me in any case) would be based on spin-up of the main gear wheels, not nose-wheel spin-up. HWSager (talk) 07:32, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

In hindsight, they should never have done a go-around once they smashed into the ground, even if the severity of damage was not apparent. One can rarely hope for a better outcome by lifting off again, even if some deaths are expected by staying on the ground. They should have applied full reverse thrust, and the wheel brakes if there were any wheels left, and come to a screeching halt. Then, immediately evacuate everyone (left side exits) unless the plane is engulfed in flames, in which case, wait for the fire trucks (that would be racing to the scene at this point) to arrive and put out enough of the fire to at least allow exit on the port/left side - especially in this case where the fire and explosions were all on the starboard/right side. HWSager (talk) 07:54, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * If the pilot hadn't immediately applied full power after detecting the spoiler deployment the plane would have struck the runway twice as hard. So not going around was maybe not an option. Andyvphil (talk) 07:43, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Broken Reference Link
At the bottom of the primary article is an external link for a apple.mac user; apparently it is no longer valid, but through research on the Internet Archive, the Wayback Machine is able to point to the original images.

see here

Archive.org website

http://web.archive.org/web/20080528164528/http://homepage.mac.com/friendsofflight621/.Pictures/621-on-Fire-Mock-Up9.jpg

Richard416282 (talk) 07:37, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

10 Injuries?
Does anybody know about the 10 minor injuries mentioned in the infobox? From what I read, all the passengers and crew were killed on impact. Where did this injury information come from? And003 (talk) 02:56, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
 * There were 11 residents in the Burgsma farmhouse. All the doors and windows blew in (generating flying glass) so it might be them. You would have to check all the references to see if that is mentioned.Andyvphil (talk) 07:51, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Confusing reference to Flight 831
This single paragraph is confusing. Does the sentence "Wreckage, bodies, bits of clothing ..... dug a furrow ....." still refer to Flight 831, or are we back to Flight 621 there? HWSager (talk) 07:32, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The reference to Flight 831 in no longer in that vicinity. Andyvphil (talk) 07:55, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Dead report link
We have working copies of the final report (in English only). It seems like there was also one at http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.ovrdigital.com/reports/CANADA/1970.07.05_AirCanada_McDonnellDouglasDC-8- but it 404s WhisperToMe (talk) 17:06, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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French language report?
I found an archive of the English report on this page, but I think it would be good to find the copy in French too. WhisperToMe (talk) 16:07, 17 July 2023 (UTC)