Airwork Handley Page Hermes accident near Trapani
Handley Page HP.81 Hermes IVA · The Airwork Handley Page Hermes accident near Trapani occurred on 25 August 1952
From Blackbushe Airport (BBS) to Khartoum International Airport (KRT)
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
- 7 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 50
- 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
Handley Page HP.81 Hermes IVA
- Aircraft type
- Handley Page HP-81
- 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-ALDF
- Operator
- Airwork
- Onboard fatalities
- 7
- Route
- From Blackbushe Airport (BBS)To Khartoum International Airport (KRT)
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- 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 Airwork Handley Page Hermes accident near Trapani occurred on 25 August 1952. On that day, an Airwork Ltd. Handley Page HP.81 Hermes IVA coming from Blackbushe Airport and on a charter flight to Khartoum with a stopover in Malta had to ditch at night in the Mediterranean Sea off Sicily after an engine and electrical failure had occurred during the flight. Of the 57 occupants of the Handley Page Hermes, seven occupants were killed.
Accident sequence
The aircraft lifted off from Blackbushe Airport on 24 August 1952 at 20:25 local time, with 51 passengers and six crew members on board. The flight proceeded without particular incident until, at 01:25 local time on 25 August 1952, the aircraft was about 20 miles west of Trapani. At this point engines No. 2 (left inner) and No. 3 (right inner) were running abnormally and were therefore deliberately shut down and their propellers feathered. Since this meant that no generators were running any longer, only the electrical power stored in the batteries remained, which was gradually used up by the use of the radio equipment to send the emergency signals. Subsequently, engines No. 1 (left outer) and No. 4 (right outer) also ran abnormally. At around 01:30 local time a ditching was carried out in the sea between the port of Trapani and the island of Formica. Four passengers drowned after the ditching; two further passengers and a flight attendant were missing.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The cause of the accident was determined to be the failure of one or both of engines No. 2 and 3., located on the inboard sides of the wings. The cause of the engine failure could not be determined.
The following were determined as contributing factors:
On the basis of their knowledge of an accident with the same aircraft type that had occurred shortly before due to engine failure, the pilots concluded that this was also a case of engine failure
The electrical generators had been put out of operation after engines No. 2 and 3 were shut down
The batteries installed in the aircraft were unsuitable for maintaining normal flight functions or sending emergency signals in the event of a generator failure
The pilots and flight attendants had only limited experience with the aircraft type being flown
The flight crew had only limited training for emergencies of this kind
Emergency procedures, were, particularly by the flight attendants, not properly followed
Life rafts were either missing or were not used.
Seat belts failed
The board of inquiry was of the opinion that only one of the two engines that had been shut down (No. 2 and 3) had failed by itself and that the failure of the other engine was due to an error by the flight engineer.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall einer Handley Page Hermes der Airwork bei Trapani” (revision 250668455, 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 einer Handley Page Hermes der Airwork bei Trapani
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 250668455 · 2024-11-25 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q131318832
- 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 einer Handley Page Hermes der Airwork bei Trapani" (page 13251658, revision 250668455), 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 Hermes airliner of Airwork carrying 51 passengers on a charter flight to Khartoum: an airline charter flight. The article: "an Airwork Ltd. Handley Page HP.81 Hermes IVA coming from Blackbushe Airport and on a charter flight to Khartoum"
- 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.