1949 Skyways accident near Tripoli
Douglas DC-4/C-54A-1-DO and Unknown · The 1949 Skyways accident near Tripoli occurred on 4 February 1949
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
- 52
- 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
- 15
- 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/C-54A-1-DO
- 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
- G-AJPL
- Operator
- Skyways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nairobi Airport, British East AfricaTo London Heathrow Airport (LHR)
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
- Aircraft › Fluids/misc hardware
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 1949 Skyways accident near Tripoli occurred on 4 February 1949. On that day a Skyways Douglas DC-4/C-54A-1-DO, which was on an intercontinental charter flight from Nairobi to London with stopovers in Khartoum and Tripoli, crashed on approach to Tripoli Airport. Of the 53 occupants on board, one crew member died as a result of the accident.
Accident sequence
The aircraft was approaching Tripoli from the west, with poor visibility of two miles and heavy rain. When the aircraft was on the downwind leg at a height of 700 feet, engine No. 4 (right outboard) failed and shortly afterwards engine No. 3 (right inboard) also failed. A stall then occurred. The captain lost control of the aircraft, which crashed into a wooded area. 15 occupants were injured in the accident, while 37 remained uninjured. One crew member died.
Investigation and cause
Causes
The cause of the accident was determined to be the captain's failure to maintain a safe altitude. The captain could have increased the available power on both left engines in order to keep the aircraft in the air after the failure of the two right engines. The reason for this failure on the part of the captain could not be determined. The failure of the two right engines was caused by fuel starvation due to an insufficient quantity of fuel in the right tank. This fuel starvation was the result of the fact that the wing tanks had become increasingly unbalanced during the last phase of the flight. An attempt by the flight engineer to cross-feed the right engines from the left tanks under emergency conditions had failed because the procedure was not completed in time.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall der Skyways bei Tripolis 1949” (revision 264043193, 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 Skyways bei Tripolis 1949
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 264043193 · 2026-02-06 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q117211750
- 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 Skyways bei Tripolis 1949" (page 12587449, revision 264043193), 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): A Skyways DC-4 with 53 occupants on an intercontinental charter flight: an airline charter flight. The article: "a Skyways Douglas DC-4/C-54A-1-DO, which was on an intercontinental charter flight from Nairobi to London"
- 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.