British Eagle Flight 802
British Eagle International Airlines Vickers Viscount · Loss of control due to total electrical failure
From London to Innsbruck
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
- Event fatalities
- 48 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 48
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Vickers Viscount
- Aircraft type
- Vickers VISCOUNT
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- 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
- G-ATFN
- Onboard fatalities
- 48
- Route
- From LondonTo Innsbruck
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
British Eagle Flight 802 was a scheduled flight from London to Innsbruck. On August 9, 1968, the Vickers Viscount operating the flight had a total electrical failure. The crew began an emergency descent, during which the Viscount lost control, crashing into a highway. All 48 occupants onboard the aircraft were killed on impact.
Accident
Flight 802 reached its cruising altitude of 21,000 feet at 11:12 GMT. The aircraft entered Munich airspace at 12:52. Ten minutes later it passed waypoint 'Mike' and was cleared to descend to 12,000 feet. This clearance was not acknowledged by the crew, nor were any of the subsequent attempts to establish contact. Witnesses reported hearing a loud bang followed by the aircraft diving in a high speed turn. The bangs were the result of both wingtips and the left elevator breaking off due to aerodynamic forces. At 13:29 it impacted the embankment carrying the four-lane Munich-Nürnberg autobahn. The debris injured a bystander and damaged a car. All 48 on board were killed.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The accident was investigated by the German Office of Civil Aeronautics. It was determined that multiple systems, including instruments, radios and AC inverters were not energized at the time of impact, but all of the generators were running. The most likely scenario was all of the generators disconnecting. In the months before the accident, multiple electrical faults were recorded, including the generators tripping out several times, sometimes with no warning lights illuminating. This would have caused the entire electrical system to be powered off the battery only.
After 31 minutes the voltage would have dropped below 20 volts, with the very high frequency radio failing two minutes later. After 43 minutes the voltage would have dropped below 9 volts, with a voltage of 16 volts required to reconnect the generators. When the VHF radio failed the crew used the emergency 'communication failure' mode on the transponder, indicating they knew it had failed, but considering no action was taken to slow the drop of voltage, the warning lights for the disconnect of generators must not have worked, as otherwise there would have been sufficient time to take action and make an emergency landing.
The crew probably elected to continue the flight until their navigational aids failed, at which point they decided to descend below the cloud cover, not knowing it was only 1000 feet high. In the clouds most instruments would have failed, including the attitude indicators crucial for knowing the attitude of the aircraft. The attitude indicators would slowly become more and more incorrect as their gyroscopes slowed down. Without them it would have been impossible to control the aircraft.
Text from the Wikipedia article “British Eagle Flight 802” (revision 1345345864, 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
Sources
Wikipedia article: British Eagle Flight 802
- Article
- British Eagle Flight 802
- Revision
- 1345345864 · 2026-03-25 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q918588
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "British Eagle Flight 802" (page 77818989, revision 1345345864)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- none
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.