El Al Flight 1862

The aircraft involved was a Boeing 747-258F, MSN 21737, registered as 4X-AXG manufactured on 7 March 1979. At the time of the crash, the 13-year old aircraft still had at least 5 years of useful service before retirement. It had flown 45,746 hours and completed 10,107 flight cycles. It was equipped with four Pratt & Whitney JT9D-7J engines. ==Accident==

On 4 October 1992, the cargo aircraft, a Boeing 747-258F, registered as , travelling from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York to Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel, made a stopover at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. During the flight from New York to Schiphol, three issues were noted: fluctuations in the autopilot speed regulation, problems with a radio, and fluctuations in the voltage of the electrical generator on engine number three, the inboard engine on the right wing that would later detach from the aircraft and initiate the accident. Captain Fuchs was an experienced aviator, having flown as a fighter-bomber pilot in the Israeli Air Force in the late 1950s. He had over 25,000 flight hours, including 9,500 hours on the Boeing 747. broadcast by pilot 4. Pilot reports fire in the engine 5. Pilot reports problems with the flaps 6. Aircraft becomes totally uncontrollable 7. Aircraft crashes The first officer made a Mayday call to air traffic control (ATC) and indicated that they wanted to return to Schiphol. At 18:28:45, the first officer reported: "El Al 1862, lost number three and number four engine, number three and number four engine." ATC and the flight crew had not yet grasped the severity of the situation. Although the flight crew knew they had lost power from the engines, they had not realized that the engines themselves had completely broken off and that the wing had been damaged. Later the media asked if the pilots could have been aware of the engines having broken off. After tests, it was found that the outboard engine on the wing of a 747 is visible from the cockpit only with difficulty and the inboard engine on the wing is not visible at all (and this is in clear weather; given the time of year and day, it was also getting dark, hampering visibility even further). Given the choices the captain and crew made following the loss of engine power, the Dutch parliamentary inquiry commission that later studied the crash concluded that the crew did not know that both engines had broken away from the right wing. On the night of the crash, the landing runway in use at Schiphol was runway 06 (called the Kaagbaan; the airport's standard runway for night-time operations due to lower noise impact on the ground). In this specific instance, it was also positioned favourably against the wind coming from direction 040 degrees. However, the crew requested runway 27 for an emergency landing, Aftermath The crash was also witnessed by people in a nearby fire station on Flierbosdreef. First responders came upon a rapidly spreading fire of "gigantic proportions" that consumed all 11 floors of the buildings and was wide. No one survived from the crash point, but some managed to escape from the remainder of the building. Witnesses reported seeing people jumping out of the building to escape the fire. Hundreds of people were left homeless by the crash; the city's municipal buses were used to transport survivors to emergency shelters. Firefighters and police were also forced to deal with reports of looting in the area. Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers and Queen Beatrix visited the scene of the disaster the following afternoon. The prime minister said, "This is a disaster that has shaken the whole country." In the days immediately following the disaster, bodies of victims were recovered from the crash site. The mayor ordered rubble and aircraft wreckage removed, and investigators found the critical engine pylon fuse pins in the landfill. The two fallen engines were recovered from the Gooimeer, as were pieces of a section of the right wing's leading edge. The remains of the aircraft were transported to Schiphol for analysis. The aircraft's flight data recorder was recovered from the crash site and was heavily damaged, with the tape broken in four places. The section containing the data from the last two and a half minutes of the flight was particularly damaged. The recorder was sent to the United States for recovery and the data was successfully extracted. Despite intensive search activities to recover the cockpit voice recorder from the wreckage area, it was never found, though El Al employees stated that it had been installed in the aircraft. ==Causes==

When Boeing 747 engine or engine pylons experience excessive load, the fuse pins holding the engine nacelle to the wing are designed to fracture cleanly, allowing the engine to separate from the aircraft without damaging the wing or wing fuel tank. Airliners are generally designed to remain airworthy in the event of an engine failure or separation, so they can be landed safely. However, damage to a wing or wing fuel tank can have disastrous consequences. The Netherlands Aviation Safety Board found that the fuse pins had not failed properly, but instead had fatigue cracks prior to overload failure. The board developed a scenario of a probable sequence of events for the loss of engine three: • Gradual failure by fatigue and then overload failure of the inboard midspar fuse pin at the inboard thin-walled location • Overload failure of the outer lug of the inboard midspar pylon fitting • Overload failure of the outboard midspar fuse pin at the outboard thin-walled and fatigue-cracked location • Overload failure of the outboard midspar fuse pin at the inboard thin-walled location This sequence of consecutive failures caused the inboard engine and pylon to break free. Its trajectory after breaking off the wing caused it to slam into the outboard engine and rip it and its pylon off the wing. Serious damage was also caused to the leading edge of the right wing. Both loss of hydraulic power and damage to the right wing prevented correct operation of the flaps the crew later tried to extend in flight. Research indicated the crew were able to keep the aircraft in the air at first due to its high air speed (280 knots), though the damage to the right wing, resulting in reduced lift, had made keeping level more difficult. At , nevertheless, lift on the right wing was sufficient to keep the aircraft aloft. Once it had to reduce speed for landing, the amount of lift on the right wing was insufficient to enable stable flight, so a safe landing would have been very difficult to achieve. The aircraft then banked sharply to the right with very little chance of recovery. The official probable causes were determined to be: ==Victims==

" At least forty-seven people were killed in the disaster: all four occupants of the aircraft (three crew members and one nonrevenue passenger) and 43 people on the ground. Memorial A memorial, designed by architects Herman Hertzberger and Georges Descombes, was built near the crash site with the names of the victims. Flowers are laid at a grey poplar tree that survived the disaster, referred to as "the tree that saw it all" (de boom die alles zag). A public memorial is held annually to mark the disaster; no planes fly over the area for one hour out of respect for the victims. ==Health issues==

Mental health care was available after the crash to all affected residents and service personnel. After about a year, many residents and service personnel began approaching doctors with physical health symptoms, which the affected patients blamed on the El Al crash. Insomnia, chronic respiratory infections, general pain and discomfort, impotence, flatulence, and bowel symptoms were all reported. The Dutch authorities did not believe that the patients were suffering from these symptoms and instead suggested they were caused by mental health problems or trauma as a result of the crash. This was believed because there were no harmful substances reported to be on board of the aircraft. Eventually about 67% of the affected patients were found to be infected with Mycoplasma, and suffered from symptoms similar to the Gulf War syndrome or chronic fatigue syndrome-like symptoms. Dutch officials from government departments of transport and of public health asserted that at the time of the crash, they understood that no health risks existed from any cargo on the aircraft; Els Borst, minister of public health, stated that "no extremely toxic, very dangerous, or radioactive materials" had been on board. In October 1993, the nuclear energy research foundation Laka reported that the tail contained of depleted uranium as counterweight, as did all Boeing 747s at the time; this was not known during the rescue and recovery process. Studies were suggested to be undertaken on the symptoms of the affected survivors and service personnel, but for several years, these suggestions were ignored on the basis that no practical reason would lead one to believe in any link between the health symptoms of the survivors and the Bijlmer crash site. In 1997, an expert testified in the Israeli parliament that dangerous products would have been released during combustion of the depleted uranium in the tail of the Boeing 747. - an eventuality given consideration, but ruled out as improbable, in the Netherlands Air Safety Board's 1994 final report of the accident. The first studies on the symptoms reported by survivors, performed by the Academisch Medisch Centrum (AMC), began in May 1998. The AMC eventually concluded that up to a dozen cases of autoimmune disorders among the survivors could be directly attributed to the crash, and health notices were distributed to doctors throughout the Netherlands requesting that extra attention be paid to symptoms of autoimmune disorder, particularly if the patient had a link with the Bijlmer crash site. Unfortunately, by the time these studies came around, some survivors had already perished, possibly as a result of these autoimmune disorders. Another study, performed by the Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu, concluded that although toxic products had been released at the time of the crash, the added risks of cancer were small, about one or two additional cases per 10,000 exposed persons. The institute also concluded that the chances of uranium poisoning were minimal. ==Cargo==

Soon after the disaster, it was announced that the aircraft had contained fruit, perfumes, and computer components. Dutch Minister Hanja Maij-Weggen asserted that she was certain that it contained no military cargo. The survivors' health complaints following the crash increased the number of questions about the cargo. In 1998, El Al spokesman Nachman Klieman publicly revealed that 190L of dimethyl methylphosphonate, a CWC schedule 2 chemical, had been included in the cargo. The chemical is a reagent in the synthesis of sarin and soman nerve gases. Israel noted that the chemical had been listed on the cargo manifest in accordance with international regulations, the material was nontoxic, and its intended use was to test the filters of chemical weapon detectors. The Dutch foreign ministry confirmed that it had already known about the presence of chemicals on the aircraft. The shipment was from a US chemical plant to the Israel Institute for Biological Research under a US Department of Commerce license. According to the chemical weapons website CWInfo, the quantity involved was "too small for the preparation of a militarily useful quantity of Sarin, but would be consistent with making small quantities for testing detection methods and protective clothing." ==Related accidents and aftermath ==

This was one of several accidents caused by problems with Boeing 707 and 747 engine pylons, which were nearly identical in design. On 31 March 1992, another similar scenario occurred with Trans-Air Service Flight 671. Engines No. 3 and No. 4 (both right wing engines) detached from the aircraft – this time on a Boeing 707. Again, No. 3 engine detached and collided with No. 4 engine, tearing it off as well. The crew landed safely at Istres Air Base in the south of France. In April 1992, a Tampa Colombia 707 cargo flight was forced to return to Miami, when the No. 3 engine separated shortly after takeoff. On 31 March 1993, Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 46E, a Boeing 747-121F (freighter), operated by Evergreen International Airlines returned to Anchorage International Airport after the No. 2 engine (inner-most left engine) detached. After this accident, Boeing issued a service directive to all owners of the 747 regarding its fuse pins. Engines and pylons had to be removed from 747s and the fuse pins examined for defects. If cracks were present, the pins were to be replaced. ==Depictions==

The crash was depicted in the National Geographic documentary series Seconds from Disaster (in the 2006 episode "Amsterdam Air Crash") and Mayday, known as Air Crash Investigation outside North America (in the 2016 episode "High Rise Catastrophe"). The crash and its aftermath were the basis for a five-part Dutch TV docudrama series titled Rampvlucht (‘Disaster Flight’) (nl), which premiered on Dutch public broadcaster NPO on 4 October 2022, the 30th anniversary of the crash. It follows a Bijlmermeer-based veterinarian and two journalists, Vincent Dekker and Pierre Heijboer who drafted themselves to find the cause of this crash in 1992, find themselves drawn into a years-long investigation into the many puzzling questions surrounding the official narrative about the crash. The series was awarded the 2022 Golden Calf for Best TV Series. ==See also==