Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 933

SK-933 Los Angeles disaster

Occurrence
Date	January 13 1969
Summary	Pilot error
Site	Los Angeles, USA
Aircraft type	McDonnell-Douglas DC-8-62
Aircraft name	Sverre Viking
Operator	Scandinavian Airlines
Registration	LN-MOO
Passengers	36
Crew	9
Fatalities	15
Injuries	17
Survivors	30

The Scandinavian Airlines System flight SK-933, a McDonnell Douglas DC-8 Series 62, tail number LN-MOO, named "Sverre Viking", of Norwegian registry, crashed in Santa Monica Bay, approximately 6 nautical miles (11 km) west of the Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, California, at approximately 1921 P.S.T., January 13, 1969. The aircraft was operating as Flight SK-933 from Seattle, Washington, to Los Angeles, California, following a flight from Copenhagen, Denmark. A scheduled crew change occurred at Seattle for the flight to Los Angeles.

The accident occurred in the waters of Santa Monica Bay while the crew was attempting an instrument approach to Runway 07R at Los Angeles International Airport.

The SAS cockpit crew became so occupied with attempting to diagnose the lack of a nose gear green light that they allowed their rate of descent to increase until the DC-8-62 crashed into the ocean, well short of the runway. Of the 45 persons aboard the aircraft, 3 passengers and 1 cabin attendant drowned; 9 passengers and 2 cabin attendants were never found and presumed dead; 11 passengers and 6 crew members, including the captain, the co-pilot, and the flight engineer (systems operator), were injured in varying degrees; and 13 passengers escaped without reported injury. The aircraft was destroyed by impact.

The fuselage broke into three pieces, two of which sank in approximately 350 feet (110 m) of water. The third section, including the wings, the forward cabin and the cockpit, floated for about 20 hours before being towed into shallow water where it sank. This section was later recovered and removed from the water.

Probable Cause

"...the probable cause of this accident was the lack of crew coordination and the inadequate monitoring of the aircraft position in space during a critical phase of an instrument landing approach which resulted in an unplanned descent into the water. Contributing to this unplanned descent was an apparent unsafe landing gear condition induced by the design of the landing gear indicator lights, and the omission of the minimum crossing altitude at an approach fix depicted on the approach chart."

See also

• Air safety

External links

• NTBS, National Transportation Safety Board Brief summary of this accident
• NTSB complete report on this accident.
• Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network