1961 Greenlandair accident near Kangerlussuaq
Eastern Provincial Airways for Greenlandair De Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter · The 1961 Greenlandair accident near Kangerlussuaq occurred on 29 August 1961
From Sondrestrom Air Base, Greenland to Aasiaat, Greenland
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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 5
- 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
De Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-3
- 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
- CF-MEX
- Onboard fatalities
- 1
- Route
- From Sondrestrom Air Base, GreenlandTo Aasiaat, Greenland
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
The 1961 Greenlandair accident near Kangerlussuaq occurred on 29 August 1961. On a Greenlandic charter flight from Sondrestrom Air Base in Kangerlussuaq to Aasiaat, a De Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter of Eastern Provincial Airways (CF-MEX) operated on behalf of Greenlandair crashed when a fire broke out shortly after takeoff. One crew member was killed in the accident.
Accident sequence
After takeoff the aircraft reached an altitude of 3500 feet and was about 20 miles north of the departure airport when a fire broke out on board. The crew was unable to return to the airport. Dense smoke spread in the cockpit, so that neither of the pilots could see what the other was doing. Only in hospital were they able to reconstruct the events as follows:
When the captain could no longer bear the heat in the cockpit, he leaned halfway outside, thereby partially shielding the cockpit against further ingress of smoke. He finally managed to make an emergency landing on a lake at 15:23 local time. The aircraft raced across the lake and slid, burning, onto the shore. The pilot was thrown forward out of the cockpit and pinned under the left float while the Otter burned out.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The accident investigation found that the fire had been caused and fed by a leak in the carburettor. The leak had arisen after an overflow line had come loose and fuel escaped from it uncontrollably.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall der Greenlandair bei Kangerlussuaq 1961” (revision 264342114, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Flugunfall der Greenlandair bei Kangerlussuaq 1961
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 264342114 · 2026-02-16 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q97138229
- 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
- de Wikipedia article "Flugunfall der Greenlandair bei Kangerlussuaq 1961" (page 11301951, revision 264342114), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- operator named as an airline in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the German Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.