January 1952
British Overseas Airways Corperation Flight 781 was on it's way to London when suddenly, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, the British-made De Havilland DHC106 Comet crashed at sea. All British people were stunned of this crash as one of the worst commercial aviation crashes ever happened to Britain. How could this newly manufactured aircraft suddenly crash at sea? In this blog, you will know why it happen....
It started on a beautiful sunny morning in Singapore as Flight 781 went for a quick stop before heading to London in the UK. The jet was an original British-made De Havilland DHC106 Comet. It was the best that the company had. It's famous for its 4 ghost engines which is categorized as new style as much that Boeing and Douglas (that time) can make were just large propeller powered aircraft. It was also the time of the fading of World War II (WWII) so some enemy countries are trying to make a new business relationship together. One of those leading countries were Britain. This became a new icon in aviation history (at that time).
It was a sunny day and BOAC 781 was having final preperations before the takeoff to London. "It was in good shape when I inspected the aircraft. It had no fatigue cracks that are so serious at all. I just can't believe why I sign the jet in shape for takeoff. I never though that this crash could happen in just a few hours...." said Jerry Bull, one of the senior BOAC Engineers who inspected the aircraft that time. He said that he met the crew of the flight during luggage transfer at the tarmac. Both pilots were still young and have a long life journey... but what can we say about it... accidents happen anyway.
After all the inspections were done, it was time for flight 781 to takeoff. It would be taking off the last time and will never come back and no one on board knew that they would never make it to London. "Yoke Peter! Yoke Peter! Please continue your takeoff after the Arganot in front of you..." said the controller. "Affirmative... Yoke Peter out." replied flight 781. The plane took off afterwards and confirmed to fly above the Mediterranean Seas to reach London. So, this could be one of the most stupidest decision that the crew ever did that makes the difficulty to all the investigators. This fact has made a change to all the parts of the investigation mostly the difficulty to solve the case.
They then decided to chat along with the Arganot in front of them which was slowly going to be passed by them. "George Peter what's your status now?" "Status is clear in front of us Yoke Peter. A clear blue sky as we say" " Roger George Peter." "Yoke Peter, do you have any reports behind us?" "Negative George Peter, we...(cut-off and sudden lost of transmission)" "Yoke Peter. Yoke Peter, do you copy? Yoke Peter? Come in please." said the Arganot pilots. The pilots quickly informed Air Traffic Control about the sudden lost of transmission. The controllers could not believe the tragedy happened and quickly tried to make contact with the missing Comet. Unfortunately, they must accept that flight 781 had crashed.
The grim of reporting to the families of the dead start at that moment. Much people cried hearing the news from BOAC airport staff. Families are gripped to their knees when first hearing about the death of their loved ones on board. Now, the investigation takes place after informing the families. This task will be a tough egg to crack as technology back then were so very antic and not even used in the 21st century. We usually use crash simulators to estimate what happens during a crash time. For the investigators, its going to take more than a year to solve this mysterious disaster. it going to take more than 25 members to make this investigation a sucess and also takes patients and precious time to get everything right.
They then start to come up with so many theories that may some look logical by mind and some others were not so supported. One of the first theories to be though by the investigators were active sabotage. They think that an active sabotage occurred in the flight by terrorist countries or enemy countries. They believe that this could be a payback mode from another country towards Britain. This theory was mostly supported by them but they can't just skip to the conclusion. So, they started doing some very in tense research to confirm the theory. Sadly, much of them who though of it were so wrong and was so out of what really happened. They did not find any data of the passegers that make any awkwardness for the crash and also did not find any sign of a bomb explosion on board the flight.
The investigators were back to square one. As searching for more theories, they found out one theory that made a break through to the investigators. The started to build a huge water tank which was so deep to sink a De Havilland Comet skin. This project took months to complete but all those hard work paid off. They sunk the Comet and then made several water pressure test to make a simulation as if the plane would be flying. A one moment, they found the full break they'd been looking for. The aircraft skin crack after a few thousand cycles and collapsed underneath the frame of the windows causing a huge hole on the aircraft.
After that, they went to a conclusion. The De Haviland Comet had crashed at sea because of manufacturing defect. It was a weakness in the creation of the aircraft skin that caused the crash. It gave a huge loss of life and creates danger to whoever gets on a De Havilland Comet. Since then, all the designs of the windows on every Comet and they decided to change the type of metal used to build the frame of the aircraft. Unfortunately, the Comet became an unfamous icon after this tragedy and Douglas and Boeing rule the industry of aviation. Now, Airbus and Boeing are the most competitive rivals in the history of commercial aviation.
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