1948 Air France accident in Kano
Douglas DC-4-1009 and Unknown · The 1948 Air France accident near Kano occurred on 10 April 1948
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
- 5
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Douglas DC-4-1009
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-4
- 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
- F-BBDC
- Operator
- Air France
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Murtala Muhammed International Airport (LOS)To Paris Airport, France
Aircraft 2 · Unknown
- 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
- Unknown
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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
The 1948 Air France accident near Kano occurred on 10 April 1948. On that day a Douglas DC-4-1009, which was on a ferry flight from Lagos to Paris with stopovers in Kano and Algiers, crashed during take-off from Kano Airport. Of the six occupants of the aircraft, one person was killed in the accident.
Accident sequence
Due to a defect in the electric starter of engine No. 1 (left outboard), the pilots were unable to start all four of the aircraft's engines. The pilots then received instructions to carry out an empty flight to Paris with the aircraft with only 3 engines running, where the aircraft was then to be serviced. During the take-off run, eyewitnesses observed blue smoke rising from the area of the nose landing gear. Although air traffic control still tried to warn the crew, the pilots continued the take-off run. While the engines were at full power, the aircraft went out of control and veered sideways off the runway about 480 metres past the starting point, before rolling at full throttle across another runway and a drainage ditch and finally crashing into a BOAC maintenance hangar. One crew member was killed in the accident, while the remaining six were injured.
Investigation and cause
Cause
In the course of the accident investigation, conspicuous tyre and brake marks were discovered on the runway, on the basis of which the accident investigators concluded that the aircraft's nose landing gear had not been configured for take-off during the take-off. The investigators concluded that the pilots had apparently not worked through the take-off checklist properly and therefore did not notice that the nose landing gear was not set for take-off.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall der Air France in Kano 1948” (revision 241739373, 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 Air France in Kano 1948
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 241739373 · 2024-01-31 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q117212098
- 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 Air France in Kano 1948" (page 12570251, revision 241739373), translated into English with AI assistance
- 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
- Reviewed correction (2026-09-26): An Air France DC-4 on an empty ferry flight to Paris for servicing: an airline's own ferry flight. The article: "a Douglas DC-4-1009, which was on a ferry flight from Lagos to Paris with stopovers in Kano and Algiers"
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: total_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.