Grytøya air accident

Cause

It was determined that the aircraft had strayed north of its course. According to the flight plan, a west-south-westerly course was to be flown and the south-eastern end of the island overflown.

It was determined that the captain had a blood alcohol level of 1.5 per mille, and that he had also slept insufficiently before the flight. The captain had attended a party at Lakselv Airport the previous evening. A civilian employee observed him sitting at the bar and consuming plenty of alcohol. When the bar closed, he reportedly went down to the basement and consumed even more alcohol. He was reportedly so drunk that he could not stay on his feet and was leaning against a pillar. The witness said she had asked the captain whether he was due to fly the next day, to which he answered yes. The flight began only four hours later. The captain is said to have boarded the aircraft with a blood alcohol level of about 2.5 per mille.

Publication of the investigation report in 2005

The complete accident report, which had initially been withheld by the Ministry of Defence, was made accessible in 2005. It revealed that the captain's severe alcohol problems had been known for years, up to the highest level of the Air Force. At one point the captain had reportedly been grounded because of his alcohol problem, but this ban had later been lifted again.

After the accident the bereaved received a travel insurance settlement under the insurance that all civilian passengers flying on an aircraft of the armed forces had to take out. As the bereaved had no knowledge of the actual background of the accident, they were not in a position to claim compensation.

Only when the file was made accessible in 2005 did the details become known. This led the bereaved to sue the state. In the district court the state's attorney argued that the case was time-barred. This met with great incomprehension among the bereaved, since the late disclosure of the background of the case was due to a cover-up by the Ministry of Defence. The lawsuit of the bereaved succeeded neither before the district court nor before the court of appeal, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

In 2012 Minister of Defence Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen apologised to the relatives of the accident victims for the long-lasting uncertainty in which they had lived. She stated, however, that she was not authorised to take the initiative to review the matter again, since the incident had occurred 40 years earlier and had in the meantime been legally settled.