KLM Flight 867

The affected machine in 2008 at Kuala Lumpur airport

KLM Flight 867 was a scheduled flight of a Boeing 747-400 with KLM from Amsterdam to Anchorage, in which there was an incident in 1989: After entering, within a cloud of volcanic ash of Mount Redoubt volcano fell all four engines out. After leaving the ash cloud succeeded in restarting the engines.

The course of the incident

On December 15, 1989, a Boeing 747-400 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines was in 28,000 feet (about 8,500 meters) altitude on a flight from Amsterdam Schiphol to Anchorage in Alaska. The eruption of Mount Redoubt a week before the incident had led to temporary closure of the airways in the region. The flight was the first who used the route to approval by the Federal Aviation Administration. Although the authorities assumed that the ash cloud had cleared, there was also an exemption to avoid the need arises in the Soviet airspace. An hour before the KLM plane reached the area, the Mount Redoubt erupted again.

While entering into a cloud that made the semblance of a normal rain cloud, noticed the cockpit crew that it was unusually dark outside and the cockpit filled with a brownish dust. In addition, a ' Schwefel' odor was perceived, to which the crew decided to leave the cloud by introducing a climb. During the climb, fell by the ingestion of ash particles inside of 59 seconds, all four engines, since it a stall of the air to be compressed on the aerodynamically shaped air compressor blades (compressor stall ) was built, causing a flameout. Since the engines powered the generators for the power supply, it came to a stop the engines of a power failure, so that only battery-powered instruments were available. In addition, it came by invading ash to short circuits. All airspeed indicator fell out, so that was also no reliable speed display. An ad falsely reported a fire in the cargo hold.

At an altitude of about 13,000 ft ( 3,962 m) managed to leave two of the engines again, at 6,000 ft ( 1,829 m) were also the two remaining engines to be restarted. According to other reports, the fourth engine started again only when landing to Anchorage. The fine ash particles had acted on the windscreen of the cockpit like a sandblaster, so visibility forward only through the side windows was possible. Still managed a safe landing in Anchorage.

Due to the ash cloud was on the aircraft property damage in the amount of 80 million U.S. dollars.

80 kg ash were found in each of the four engines In examining the machine.

The plane, a Boeing 747-400, with serial number 23982, the term " Calgary " and the Dutch ID PH- BFC ( January 2014 ) will be used by the KLM subsidiary KLM Asia today.

A similar incident occurred in 1982, when a Boeing 747 of British Airways south of Java flew through the ash cloud of a volcano and it also turned out the engines.

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