Fornebu accident

The Fornebu accident was an air accident that occurred at Oslo Airport, Fornebu on 30 January 1973 involving Scandinavian Airlines flight SK370. The accident happened when the aircraft aborted its takeoff and was unable to stop before the end of the runway, so that it slid out onto the ice-covered fjord. Eventually the aircraft sank through the ice. No one was killed or physically injured as a result of the accident. The aircraft was a Douglas DC-9-21.

Sequence of the accident

Route SK370 was the evening service from Oslo Airport Fornebu to Alta Airport, with an intermediate landing at Tromsø Airport, Langnes. At 2318 the crew received clearance from the control tower to take off from runway 24 at Fornebu. The acceleration proceeded without problems and the aircraft rotated at VR, 125 knots / 232 km/h, the speed at which the nose of the aircraft is lifted off the runway. At the same moment the stall warning system was activated, and despite the fact that the aircraft's speed had increased to 140 knots / 259 km/h, the pilot chose to abort the takeoff.

The remaining 1,100 metres of the runway were not sufficient to stop the aircraft, while at the same time the reverse thrust could not be fully engaged. The aircraft therefore eventually ran off the runway and out onto the ice-covered Oslofjord. The aircraft stopped on the ice about 20 metres from the shore, and a full evacuation of the passengers was carried out by the crew. Everyone on board the aircraft got out before it went through the ice 20 minutes later and sank to a depth of 10 metres.

Afterwards the investigations revealed that in the last days before the accident the aircraft had been plagued by a series of stall warnings. The cause was a fault in the aircraft's Stall Warning Transducer, which is part of the system that warns that the aircraft may stall. LN-RLM was raised a few days after the accident, but was so corroded that it could not be repaired and was eventually written off. Parts of the aircraft were later used in various aviation training. The cockpit's centre console is now in use in the flight simulator at the SAS Museum.