User:Tombeckett2285

Dan Air Flight 1008 was a chartered flight originating from Manchester International Airport bound for Tenerife Norte (Los Rodeos) Airport. On 25th April 1980 the aircraft crashed into a mountain 11.5km south west of the airport while attempting to land. All 146 occupant were killed in one of the worst crashes involving a British registered aircraft.

History

Flight 1008 was operated by Dan Air using a Boeing 727-100 aircraft, registered G-BDAN. The aforementioned aircraft, MSN 19279 was manufactured in 1966 and had its airworthiness certificate renewed only 2 months prior to the accident. After taking off from Manchester at 9:22am the flight proceeded uneventfully to the south west.

During the descent, at FL110 (11,000ft) the crew contacted Tenerife Norte Approach Control to report that they were 14nm from the TFN VOR, a radio beacon used to guide aircraft on the approach to Tenerife Norte Airport. Air Traffic Control cleared the crew to fly to a further beacon, called 'FP' via the TFN beacon and expect a landing on runway 12 with no delays. The current weather was also provided to the crew, which forecast some drizzle and scattered clouds with a visibility of 6-7 kilometres.

After further instructing the crew to descend to 6000 feet, ATC informed the Dan Air crew of an unpublished holding pattern over the FP beacon consisting of an inbound heading of 150 degrees, then a turn to the left. While the exchanges between the Dan Air crew and ATC, there was an Iberia flight in the area, with exchanges between that crew and the ATC in Spanish (the local language). This was not against ICAO regulations at the time.

The Iberia crew left their holding height of 5000ft and the Dan Air crew were cleared to descend to that level.

Shortly afterwards, the Dan Air crew advised ATC that they had received A Ground Proximity Warning, designed to stop them flying into hidden ground. Two seconds after this transmission, Contact was lost as the Aircraft collided with the mountainside and disintegrated.

Cause of the Accident

The major cause of the accident was the crew's failure to follow the approach as described. They missed the TFN beacon by 0.79 nautical miles and then followed the wrong course away from it, taking a route into a zone where the minimum safe altitude is 14,500 ft. However, ATC should not have provided them with an approach that was not verified by the Air Authority