A Fuse Pin

Statistically, flying is a far safer mode of travel than driving. The reason people think don’t know that is that when there is an air accident, it is big news, and many automobile accidents go virtually unnoticed. Nevertheless, there is always an investigation into the cause of these accidents…no matter what mode of transportation was involved. Sometimes the cause can be carelessness, sometimes deliberate, and sometimes it’s simply a faulty part. Such was the case when a cargo plane crashed into an apartment building near an airport in Amsterdam, Holland, on October 4, 1992. Sadly, four people aboard the plane and approximately 100 more in the apartment building lost their lives in the disaster.

The plane, an El-Al Boeing 747 cargo jet was set to transport 114 tons of computers, machinery, textiles, and other materials from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv, Israel, on that October 4th. That Sunday evening at 6:30pm, Captain Isaac Fuchs took off from Schiphol Airport in good weather, accompanied by two other pilots, and one passenger. Just minutes after takeoff, fires erupted in the plane’s third and fourth engines, causing them to completely detach from the wing.

Like most pilots, Fuchs didn’t panic at first, but rather, did his best to troubleshoot the problem and work toward a safe landing. He attempted to dump the plane’s fuel into a lake and return to the airport, but the aircraft lacked sufficient power to make it back. The plane was just six miles from the airport, when Fuchs radioed, “Going down,” right before the plane crashed directly into an apartment building in Amsterdam’s Bijimermeer neighborhood. The crash caused a massive fireball that engulfed the building. Firefighters responded swiftly, but by the time they managed to control the blaze, around 100 people had lost their lives. Determining the exact death toll was challenging due to the explosion’s intensity and the fact that the building primarily housed illegal aliens from Suriname and Aruba.

The accident closely resembled one that occurred in Taiwan less than a year earlier, where a China Airlines jet crashed after losing its two right engines. Sadly, the similarity, while not pinpointed the year before, became clear now. The issue stemmed from a fuse pin, a component that connects the engines to the wings. Both crashes were likely caused by fatigue and failure of this one little part.