.jpg) A similar aircraft to the crashed Hercules | |
| Accident | |
|---|---|
| Date | 15 July 1996 (1996-07-15) |
| Summary | Loss of power following bird strike |
| Site | Eindhoven Airport, Netherlands |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Lockheed C-130H Hercules |
| Operator | Belgian Air Force |
| Registration | CH-06 |
| Flight origin | Verona Villafranca Airport, Italy |
| Last stopover | Rimini Airport, Italy |
| Destination | Eindhoven Airport, Netherlands |
| Passengers | 37 |
| Crew | 4 |
| Fatalities | 34 |
| Injuries | 7 |
| Survivors | 7 |
The 1996 Belgian Air Force Hercules accident is an aviation accident that occurred on 15 July 1996 at Eindhoven Airport, the Netherlands. The disaster involved a Belgian Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft and resulted in the death of 34 passengers. The incident is known as the "Hercules disaster" (Dutch: Herculesramp) in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Accident
At 6:02 pm local time, the transport aircraft crashed at Eindhoven Airport with a total of 41 people on board: Four Belgian crew members and 37 young members of the Fanfarekorps of the Royal Netherlands Army. As the aircraft was coming in to land at Eindhoven, it encountered a flock of birds; it overshot, but lost power and crashed into the ground; a fire broke out, which destroyed the cockpit and forward fuselage, killing 32 people on board.
The Eindhoven airfield fire service were not initially aware that the transport aircraft was carrying passengers – it was thirty minutes before they realised this fact, by which time most of them had died in the post-crash fire. Following the accident, the Royal Netherlands Air Force officer who commanded the Eindhoven airbase, the officer responsible for air traffic and the officer commanding the fire department were relieved of their duties. The investigation established that the passenger information, which was listed on the flight plan, was not transmitted to the destination airport; the investigation recommended that the flight plan procedure be amended.
Investigation
The cause of the accident was the ingestion of common starlings into the two left engines, which caused the plane to go out of control during landing.
References
- "32 killed in Netherlands plane crash." Times 16 July 1996: 11.
- ^ "Officers lose jobs after C-130 crash". Flight International: 21. 16–22 October 1996.
- "C-130 Crash". Flight International: 18. 30 September – 5 November 1996.
- "L'étourneau sansonnet". Jardin des Plantes. Archived from the original on 2016-04-04. Retrieved 2016-08-22.
External links
| Aviation accidents and incidents in the Netherlands | |
|---|---|
| 1910s-1930s |
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| 1940s-1960s |
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| 1970s-1990s |
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| 2000s-2020s |
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| Aviation accidents and incidents in 1996 (1996) | |
|---|---|
| Jan 8 Air Africa crashFeb 4 LAC Colombia Flight 028Feb 6 Birgenair Flight 301Feb 29 Faucett Perú Flight 251Apr 3 USAF CT-43 crashApr 5 Formosa Airlines Flight 7613May 11 ValuJet Flight 592Jun 9 Eastwind Airlines Flight 517Jun 13 Garuda Indonesia Flight 865Jul 6 Delta Air Lines Flight 1288Jul 15 Belgian Air Force Hercules crashJul 17 TWA Flight 800Aug 16 Airstan incidentAug 19 Spair Airlines Flight 3601Aug 29 Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801Sep 3 Hemus Air Flight 7081Sep 5 FedEx Express Flight 1406Sep 25 Texel Douglas DC-3 crashOct 2 Aeroperú Flight 603Oct 5 Westendorff UFO sightingOct 22 Millon Air Flight 406Oct 31 TAM Transportes Aéreos Regionais Flight 402Nov 7 ADC Airlines Flight 086Nov 12 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collisionNov 19 Quincy Airport disasterNov 23 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961Nov 27 RA-78804Dec 9 Dirgantara Air Service Flight 5940Dec 22 Airborne Express Flight 827Dec 24 New Hampshire Learjet crash | |
| 1995 ◄ ► 1997 |
51°27′00″N 5°22′28″E / 51.4500°N 5.3744°E / 51.4500; 5.3744
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