Going back in time a bit more now – doing a bit of preliminary research into aircraft design faults, I came across the case of Northwest Airlines Flight One crash in January 1939, in which shortly after take off a fire broke out in the cockpit of a Lockheed 14 Super Electra, apparently originating in the cross-feed fuel valve. It reminded me of the case of British Airways Lockheed 10 Electra G-AESY had a cockpit fire in August 1939, forcing it to come down in the Storstroem Straits – the radio officer and four passengers dying from inhalation of fumes from the fire or drowning.
As well as these two cases of fire in the cockpits, of the British Airways 11 Lockheed 14 Super Electra’s, one had engine trouble and was burnt out on the ground at Luxeil, one crashed on a training flight, three crashed in BOAC service, two others crashed on take off, another crashed at a place called Inhambane (this and one of the take off crashed occured whilst both aircraft were with DETA, now known as Mozambique airlines) and another crashed into the sea off Malta – so, in total, out of 11 Super Electra’s bought by British Airways, just two weren’t involved in accidents
On top of that, as mentioned one L10 Electra crashed (and another later crashed following a test flight in BOAC service) and one of three L12 Electra Juniors crashed in French service in 1943 (although the three Electra Juniors were never operated by British Airways, and were actually being used for secret photography work whilst registered with them).
Does anyone know of any particularly problems with the three Lockheed Electra designs that regularly occured? Fire in the cockpit brought down the Northwest Airlines Super Electra and the BA Electra, and in flight break up brought down another Northwest Airlines Super Electra – I don’t know what air accident investigation was like in the 1930’s and 1940’s (especially for the crashes which occured during wartime) but the two causes mentioned could have been attributable to other crashes I mentioned. Although work was done by Lockheed to prevent flutter leading to in flight break up on the Super Electra’s, problems could have continued onto the Lockheed Hudson and derivatives wartime service
Unfortunately I can’t find any books at all covering any of the Lockheed Electra’s aside from one covering Lockheed 10’s in New Zealand
By: CatalinaEgan - 31st March 2025 at 12:34
Accident investigation 1930s
At the National Archives at KEW there are several interesting files on the Air Ministry’s dept. of crash investigations. As it was an industry that grew very fast tbefore WWII there was a handful of men designated to accident investigation.
R.E.G. Davies has several books with some data on Lockheed 10’s.
By: JDK - 31st March 2025 at 12:32
The Lockheed 14 / Hudson had some tricky / different handling characteristics (for the era) thanks primarily to the large Fowler flaps. The 14 was a very different aircraft performance wise to the 10 and 12, and their more benign spilt flaps. I think it fair to say that the 10, 12 and 14 were ‘hot ships’ in the European environment of the late 1930s, perhaps more challanging in equivalent terms than a Lear type aircraft was in the1960s. The flying environment then was based more on general procedures than type specific approaches.
The Hudson caught a fair number of RAF and RAAF pilots out, including one of the most important fatal accidents when several senior Australian officers were killed in a landing approach accident in a Hudson at Canberra. There’s a somewhat hysteric website by the descendant of an RAF pilot sadly killed in a Hudson accident, attempting to show the Hudson was a ‘dangerous’ and unfit aircraft. I don’t have the URL.
However the fires are a different issue.
I’ve been in a 12 at engine run up, but not flown in one (yet) and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed a flight in air Canada’s Lockheed 10, CF-TCC. In the right hands, I’d not hesitate to fly in any of them.
The Lockheed 12 (and I think 10) have a well known undercarriage weakness in that the don’t have an ‘overlock’ in the extension arm, so that can fold collapsing the gear – this happened recently to the (since repaired) French based 12.
I’ve talked to Doug Hamilton, current on the Temora Hudson and his own Lockheed 12 (and the only pilot current on both) and may be able to put specific questions to him.
Drop me an e-mail to discuss further.
Regards,
By: Rlangham - 31st March 2025 at 12:30
Hi James, thanks for that – lots of interesting info there, and an e-mail shortly to be on it’s way
Cheers, Rob
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January 21, 2010 at 6:47 pm