Air Congo Douglas DC-4 accident

The Air Congo Douglas DC-4 accident occurred on 29 November 1964. On that day a Douglas DC-4 (OO-DEP), which was to operate a charter flight to Kamina, collided with an oil drum on the runway during its take-off run from Stanleyville Airport, whereupon control was lost and the aircraft crashed. Six people were killed in the accident.

Accident sequence

On that day the aircraft was to operate a domestic charter flight from Kamina to Stanleyville (today: Kisangani) and back. After the outbound flight had been completed successfully, the take-off run from Stanleyville Airport began at 19:20 – and thus after nightfall. After the aircraft had rolled 900 metres, the captain suddenly spotted an empty oil drum on the runway. He tried to avoid the drum by braking abruptly with the landing gear wheels on the left side, making the aircraft swerve to the left. The nose landing gear nevertheless struck the drum. At that moment the aircraft's nose lifted off. The aircraft had reached a speed at which lift-off would have been possible under normal circumstances. The collision with the landing gear hurled the oil drum up; it fell onto the runway and bounced up again, whereupon the aircraft struck the drum with the right horizontal stabiliser. Part of the horizontal stabiliser was torn off and fell onto the runway, while the drum was hurled off the runway towards one of the exits. The aircraft continued to roll and was increasingly pushed to the right by the presumably completely deformed right horizontal stabiliser. The aircraft rotated and the crew immediately retracted the landing gear. After only 500 metres in the air, the aircraft, whose vertical controllability had been lost due to the damage to the horizontal stabiliser, crashed to the ground at a pitch angle of 30 degrees. The accident occurred at the northern exit of runway 28, about 150 metres beyond the end of the runway. After the impact the aircraft bounced, fell to the ground again 50 metres further on and then slid along on the underside of its fuselage. The aircraft finally slewed 90 degrees to the right, during which the passengers who had been seated in the rear section of the aircraft were thrown out of the DC-4 through the torn-off cargo door and the open cabin door. Immediately after the aircraft came to a stop, a fire broke out. The aircraft was completely destroyed by the fire.

Accident investigation

It was found that the runway lighting had been extremely deficient. Numerous lights had failed, and some of them had been replaced by kerosene lamps. An examination of the high-lift devices showed that they had been in the 15-degree position required for take-off and that the flight control cables were not damaged.

The seating position in the aircraft played a significant role in surviving the accident. Nine people who had been seated in the rear part of the cabin had been thrown out of the aircraft. Although the occupants had suffered injuries of varying degrees and one of the people later died in hospital as a result of severe burns, the remaining eight survivors were the only ones of the accident.

A large piece of the right horizontal stabiliser was found on the runway. It was severely deformed and showed impressions from a collision with a cylindrical object.

The cause of the accident was determined to be the aircraft's collision with an empty oil drum during take-off. The collision had caused damage to the right horizontal stabiliser, which had led to the loss of control.

The accident investigators established that the drum had belonged to a row of oil drums with which the runway had been blocked during the Congo Crisis. After the crisis, when troops of the armed forces of Congo-Kinshasa took the airport and drove out the rebels of the Gizenga government, the drums had been cleared from the runway and deposited next to it. It was suspected that the drum had been blown onto the runway by the jet blast of another aircraft that had previously taken off from the airport.