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Mohawk Airlines Flight 40

23 Jun 1967 · Blossburg, Pennsylvania

British Aircraft Corporation 1-11 · Mechanical failure, causing an in-flight fire, leading to structural failure and a loss of control

From Syracuse Hancock International Airport, Syracuse, NY to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA)

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Event

Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
Accident
InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
Unknown
Event fatalities
34 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
0
Occupants
34
Survivors
0
InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
Airline
WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
Visual Meteorological Cond

British Aircraft Corporation 1-11

Aircraft type
British 1
Category
Airplane
RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
N1116J
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Syracuse Hancock International Airport, Syracuse, NYTo Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA)
Aircraft age
Not recorded
Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passenger service)
Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
En route · climb to cruise
Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
Fire or explosion in flight
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Destroyed

Cause areas

  • Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Burned
  • Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Disconnected
  • Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Material failure
  • Powerplant › Bleed value
  • Systems › Elevator and elevator tab control system

Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.

From the Wikipedia article

Mohawk Airlines Flight 40 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight between Syracuse, New York and Washington, DC, with an intermediate stop in Elmira, New York. On June 23, 1967 the BAC One-Eleven suffered a loss of control and crashed, killing all 30 passengers and four crew on board. It was the deadliest disaster in the airline's history. A valve in the auxiliary power unit had suffered a complete failure, spreading fire to the tailplane, causing a loss of pitch control.

Investigation and cause

Investigation

The National Transportation Safety Board launched a full investigation. The findings of that investigation are as follows:

A non-return valve in the auxiliary power unit had suffered a complete failure. This allowed bleed air from the engine to flow through the system in the wrong direction. This air exited at the start of the system at sufficient temperatures to ignite components there. The fire quickly spread to the hydraulics in the aircraft, and moved along the hydraulic lines to the rear of the plane. There, it caused heavy damage to the tail, causing a loss of pitch control which sent the airplane diving into the ground.

Text from the Wikipedia article “Mohawk Airlines Flight 40” (revision 1357733313, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article

NTSB remarks

ENG AIR THRU MALFUNCTIONING NONRETURN,AND OPEN AIR DELIVERY VALVES IGNITED FIRE IN PLENUM CHAMBER.

NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative

Sources

Wikipedia article: Mohawk Airlines Flight 40
Article
Mohawk Airlines Flight 40
Revision
1357733313 · 2026-06-04 · retrieved 2026-09-18
Wikidata
Q6893757
Licence
Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
Event ID
19670623P016863
Case number
Unknown
Dataset
historical-pre1982
Source SHA-256
abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
Record
Wikipedia article "Mohawk Airlines Flight 40" (page 6929277, revision 1357733313); merged with NTSB case NTSB19670623P016863 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
Date
NTSB record NTSB19670623P016863: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19670623P016863
Map position
Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
Aircraft, operator and route
NTSB record NTSB19670623P016863: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
Operation
NTSB record NTSB19670623P016863: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passg.svc)
Fatalities
NTSB record NTSB19670623P016863: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
Ground fatalities
NTSB record NTSB19670623P016863: events.inj_f_grnd
Summary
Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
  • One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Mohawk Airlines Flight 40" and NTSB case NTSB19670623P016863, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
  • From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
  • Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
  • The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.