Flight 751 - A Christmas miracle Multi-Cache
Flight 751 - A Christmas miracle
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Crash site of flight 751 - Gottrörakraschen
READ IMPORTANT NOTES AT THE END OF THIS TEXT!
This is a three-stage multicache.
Flight 751 from Arlanda Airport to Copenhagen took off from the runway 08 eastbound at 8:47 on December 27, 1991. It carried 122 passengers and a crew of seven. It had been a cold winter night and the airplane, which had been parked for the night, had been de-iced before takeoff, but the de-icing was not controlled properly. So some invisible clear ice on the wings was not discovered.
During takeoff some ice bits loosened from the aircrafts wings and slammed into the engines located behind the wings, hitting the compressor fans. 1:18min after start the plane lost power of both engines. At this point the aircraft had reached a height of only 3206 feet / 977m, so it was obvious that it would not make it back to the airport. This would have required a 180 degree turn, which costs lot of height. Now the plane had become a big glider, just 1.5 minutes after takeoff!
Another pilot, who was on board as a passenger, had tried to help the crew, but now he rushed back to the cabin, preparing for a crash landing. At a height of 300m the plane came out of the clouds near the little village of Gottröra and the captain aimed for an open field straight ahead. However the plane came down quite quickly and shaved off some treetops, still at a speed of 121knots / 224km/h before hitting the ground tail first. It was gliding for another 110m and broke into three pieces. 4 minutes 15 seconds after the start everything was over.
But an unbelieable miracle had happened: nobody was killed in the impact! Only very few people where injured and only one of them seriouly, all but one could leave the airplane without help. The plane had left the airport carrying almost 4000kg of fuel and everything was soaked in fuel after the crash, but it never started burning.
Some of the passengers walked to a close by cabin, where they wanted to ask for help. When they rang the doorbell, some sleepy teenagers opend, who had not heared the crash at all - now 129 dirty people where standing in front of their cabin and an airplane broken in three pieces was "parked" closeby in the field!
In the aftermath of the crash, there was quite some discussion about airplane safety, about who or what really saved the passengers and crew and how safety could be improved. The pilots had even been struggeling with some automated system installed in the plane for thrust control, which they were not aware of! De-icing had not been perfect and the controls insufficient. So several factors combined and lead to the crash. But fortunately this desaster ended without the loss of any lives.
Therefore the crash made it into the international media as "The christmas miracle of Gottröra"!
A dramatized documentation can be found here:
(visit link)
IMPORTANT NOTES:
To solve this 3-stage multicache you will need to cover a distance of aproximately 25km - from Arlanda Airport to stage 2 (where the aircraft had reached it's maxium altitude) to stage 3 (the crash site)! I recommend car, motorcycle or a least a bicycle and some shoes suitable for offroad walking.
You will also need some kind of internet access, because you will need to answer some questions about details of flight 751 at stage 1 and stage 2!!!
Please do not attempt this multi in large groups, to avoid attention of people living close by the crash site.
I am installing this multicache 20 years after the crash to honor the pilots efforts to save passengers and crew and as a tribute to all rescue workers.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Fgntr 1: Zvpeb, gerr uvtu
Fgntr 2: Zvpeb, gerr uvtu
Fgntr 3: Erthyne, gerr ybj
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