Dan-Air Flight 1008

Dan-Air Flight 1008 was a fatal accident involving a Boeing 727-46 jet aircraft operated by Dan Air Services Limited on a chartered international passenger service from Manchester to Tenerife. The accident occurred on 25 April 1980 in a forest on Tenerife's Mount La Esperanza, when the aircraft's flight crew wrongly executed an unpublished holding pattern in an area of very high terrain; it resulted in the aircraft's destruction and the deaths of all 146 on board (138 passengers and eight crew). Flight 1008 was Dan-Air's second major accident in ten years and the worst accident involving the deaths of fare-paying passengers in the airline's entire history, and the seventh deadliest involving a Boeing 727.

Flight history

Flight 1008 was a charter flight from Manchester Airport, United Kingdom, to Tenerife North Airport, Canary Islands, Spain. The flight was flying closely behind a slower Iberia turboprop. The flight was 14 nmi from VOR/DME beacon 'TFN' when it was cleared onward to radio beacon 'FP' for an approach to runway 12 after it had reached 'TFN'. Initially at flight level (FL) 110 (about 11,000 ft), Dan-Air 1008 was then cleared to descend to FL 60 (about 6,000 ft). The crew reported overhead 'TFN' and was requested to join a nonstandard holding pattern over the 'FP' beacon. This holding pattern was not a published procedure and the crew did not have a chart for it, but the instruction was accepted. In fact, the aircraft did not pass over 'FP', but instead flew to the south of the beacon and called "entering the hold". About a minute later, they were cleared to descend to 5000 ft.

Although the pilot in command had said he was entering the hold according to the Spanish air traffic controller's instructions, he actually turned the aircraft to the left towards the southeast into an area of high ground, where the minimum safe altitude was 14500 ft. During the aircraft's descent towards 5000 ft the ground proximity warning system (GPWS) activated, the crew reacted quickly and initiated a climb. With the engines at full power, the aircraft entered a steep turn to the right and struck Mount La Esperanza at 13:21:15 local time. The aircraft was flying in cloud when it struck the mountain. The impact resulted in the aircraft's complete disintegration, killing everyone on board and leaving a debris trail 350 m long.

Accident investigation and cause

The official (Spanish) investigation concluded that the cause of the accident was that the pilot in command, without taking account of the altitude at which he was flying, took the aircraft into an area of high terrain and thereby failed to maintain a safe height above the terrain. A British addendum to the report found that tardy and ambiguous directions from air traffic control regarding the unpublished hold directly contributed to the disorientation of the aircraft commander. The addendum also found that the unpublished track onto which the aircraft was directed required tight turns to be flown. These were practically unflyable, making entry into the region of high ground inevitable for an aircraft flying this track, even without the navigational errors made by Dan-Air 1008. Furthermore, the addendum found that the directed altitude of 5000 ft was inadequate for this holding pattern, and that the minimum altitude for entry into the holding pattern should have been 8000 ft (with a minimum altitude of 7000 ft for the pattern itself), had a minimum safe altitude calculation been performed ahead of time by a competent authority figure. The addendum concluded that the accident would not have occurred if the aircraft had not been cleared below 7000 ft.