Part 108: Saudi Arabia

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This plane crash takes us to the middle eastern nation of Saudi Arabia, which is located next to the following countries: Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Yemen, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

WARNINGS OF A PLANE CRASH

 Pictured above is the accident aircraft, photographed in 1989

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Pictured above is the accident aircraft, photographed in 1989.

Nigeria Airways Flight 2120, registered as Charlie- Golf Mike Xray Quebec (C-GMXQ), was a chartered passenger flight from King Abdulaziz International Airport (IATA: JED, ICAO: OEJN), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to Sadiq Abubakar III International Airport (IATA: SKO, ICAO: DNSO), Sokoto, Nigeria, on the 11th of July 1991, the plane caught fire shortly after takeoff from King Abdulaziz International Airport and the plane crashed while it was attempting to return to the airport for an emergency landing, the crash killed all 247 passengers and 14 crew members (261 in total) who were on board the plane, the aircraft was a Douglas DC-8 which was operated by Nationair Canada for Nigeria Airways, Flight 2120 is the deadliest accident involving a DC-8 and it remains the deadliest aviation disaster involving a Canadian airline.

The plane departed from the airport but unknown to the crew, the number one and number two tyre on the landing gear were not filled with the right amount of air and they exploded as the plane was doing it's takeoff roll, the fire started in an area where there is no warning system, as the crew retracted the landing gear, the fire was now in the wheel area of the fuselage, due to this the fire spread to critical areas that are located near the landing gear wheel area, the cabin pressurisation failed, the crew were now dealing with warnings caused by fire related circuit failures, due to the pressurisation failure, the Captain decided to remain at 2,000 feet but the were cleared to 3,000 feet, the First Officer reported that they were losing hydraulics, the crew only became aware of the fire when a flight attendant reported smoke in the back of the plane, the First Officer reported that he lost ailerons, which forced the Captain to take over the controls, when he did gain control the CVR (Cockpit voice recorder) failed, when the plane was about 18 kilometres from the airport, at an altitude of 2,200 feet, at this point the landing gear could be lowered, the plane began to experience an in flight breakup, a number of bodies fell from the plane, indicating that the fire consumed part of the cabin floor, just 2.875 kilometres short of the runway, the melting plane became uncontrollable and it crashed, killing whatever portion of the 261 people on board who had not already suffocated or fallen out of the plane, nine of the 14 crew were identified after the crash but no attempts were made to identify the passengers.

The summary of the crash was an Under-inflated tyre overheating leading to an in flight fire.

Below is a video which explains what happened that day, video credit goes to Disaster Breakdown on Youtube, video is done by Chloe Howie.



Below is another video which also explains what happened that day, video credit goes to The Flight Channel on Youtube.

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