BOAC Flight 911

BOAC Flight 911 was a round-the-world flight operated by the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) that crashed near Mount Fuji in Japan on 5 March 1966, with the loss of all 113 passengers and 11 crew members. The Boeing 707 flying the route disintegrated mid-air shortly after departing from Tokyo Haneda Airport as a result of severe clear-air turbulence.

The crash of Flight 911 was the third fatal passenger airline accident in Tokyo in a month, following the crash of All Nippon Airways Flight 60 on 4 February and that of Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 402 just the day before.

Flight history

The accident aircraft, a Boeing 707 (registration G-APFE, arrived at Tokyo Haneda Airport at 12:40 on 5 March 1966. The plane had flown from Fukuoka Airport, where it had diverted the previous day due to weather conditions in Tokyo. The weather had since improved behind a cold front with a steep pressure gradient, bringing cool dry air from the Asian mainland on a strong west-northwest flow, with crystal-clear sky conditions.

For the next leg of Flight 911, which would take the plane to Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong, the crew received a weather briefing from an airline representative, and filed an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan calling for a southbound departure from Haneda via the island of Izu Ōshima, then on airway JG6 to Hong Kong at flight level 310 (31000 ft). Eighty-nine passengers were from the United States, one crew member and 12 passengers were from Japan, nine crew members were from the United Kingdom, the remaining crew member and a passenger were from China, one each came from Canada and New Zealand while the nationalities for the nine remaining passengers are not known.

At 13:42, Flight 911's crew contacted Tokyo air traffic control (ATC) requesting permission to start the engines and amending their clearance request to a visual meteorological conditions (VMC) climb westbound via the Fuji-Rebel-Kushimoto waypoints, which would take them nearer to Mount Fuji, possibly to give the passengers a better view of the landmark.

The aircraft began taxiing at 13:50 and took off into the northwest wind at 13:58. After takeoff, the aircraft made a continuous climbing right turn over Tokyo Bay and rolled out on a southwest heading, passing north of Odawara. It then turned right again toward Mount Fuji, flying over Gotemba on a heading of approximately 298°, at an indicated airspeed of 320 to 370 kn and an altitude of approximately 16000 ft, well above the 12,388 ft mountain peak. The aircraft then encountered strong turbulence, causing it to break up in flight and crash into a forest.