It first flew on Tuesday, 15 March 1955 at Hurn, Bournemouth, Hampshire, England powered by Rolls-Royce Dart 506 engines.
Air Inter (Lignes Aériennes Intérieures) as F-BMCH.
Crashed into Mount Pic du Picon at an altitude of approximately 1000 feet, 2.5 miles from Noirétable and 37 miles west of Lyon, Southern France 27 October 1972 on approach to Aulnat Airport, Clermont-Ferrand.
An order was placed by Trans-Canada Air Lines (TCA) for fifteen Type V.724 aircraft at a total cost of Can$11,500,000. This was the fifth one built.
and the 23rd Viscount assembled at Hurn, Bournemouth, Hampshire, England.
Production Order No. F05/724. Sales Order No. 05/51B. Stock Order No. 19/21B.
First flight from Hurn Airport, Bournemouth, Hampshire, England.
Departed on delivery to Trans-Canada Air Lines (TCA) with fleet number '605'.
It was fitted with Rolls-Royce Dart RDa3 Mark 506 engines.
TCA issued technical instruction V-05.04-1/1 to apply the word 'Viscount' to the tail section in 8.5 inch high red letters edged in white at the first opportunity.
This was the first of the fleet to have the word 'Viscount' on the tail in the upper position. CF-TGJ (C/N 41) initially had it in larger letters lower down on the tail, but this was soon moved to the standard position higher up.
TCA issued technical instruction V-31.02-2/5 to apply the word 'Viscount' to the inside of the passenger loading door in 4 inch high red letters edged in white at the first opportunity.
Cabin interior changed to a two class 44 seat arrangement.
TCA issued instructions that all Viscounts would be repainted in a 'White Top' livery when a suitable maintenance period became available.
Scheduled to enter the Winnipeg Airport, Manitoba, Canada TCA maintenance facility for the replacement of the life expired wing lower inner spar boom at approximately 5830 landings for this component. This work usually took 28 days to complete.
Suffered an electrical failure. No more details known so please contact information@vickersviscount.net if you can help.
Made an emergency landing at Dorval Airport, Montreal, Province of Quebec, Canada.
After departing from Malton Airport, Toronto on a flight to Uplands Airport, Ottawa the flight crew discovered that there was a malfunction to the port main undercarriage. Captain C P 'Chuck' Kenworthy elected to divert to Dorval Airport, Montreal where there were more facilities and landed with the starboard and nosewheel legs down and locked. He managed to keep the port wing level for much of the landing run until the speed decayed. This resulted in minimal damage to the aircraft but the port propellers curled on impact resulting in shockload damage to the two Dart engines.
There were no serious injuries to the 44 passengers and 5 crew on board. Note the increase in seating from 40.
Photographs by La Presse, Montreal show the aircraft on the runway and others of Captain Kenworthy being congratulated by the other crew members, Co-pilot D A Stanger, hostesses Cynthia Davis and Shirley Bostock inside the terminal building.
Prior to this incident the standard procedure in the event of a main undercarriage leg problem was that the aircraft should be landed on its belly. Based on the small amount of damage incurred during this incident the procedure was changed to allow a single main leg landing to be attempted at the discretion of the Captain.
The cause of the undercarriage leg failure was a loss of hydraulic oil caused by broken 'D' type seals in the main strut. The leg did not fully retract after takeoff which allowed it to become trapped by the closing undercarriage doors. Replacement 'V' type seals were fitted and a fleetwide instruction was put out to replace existing 'D' type seals on other affected aircraft at the earliest convenience.
Returned to service after repairs including replacement port engines and propellers.
Withdrawn from service and stored at Winnipeg Airport, Manitoba, Canada.
Total time 18,151 hours and 14,701 total landings.
Sold to William C Wold & Associates.
Purchased from Trans-Canada Air Lines (TCA).
William C Wold & Associates of New York claimed to be the world's largest broker of multi-engine aircraft.
Sold to Air Inter (Lignes Aériennes Intérieures).
Purchased from William C Wold & Associates.
Noted arriving at Gatwick Airport, Surrey, England at 09:54 local time during the delivery from Canada using an Air France flight number and departed for Orly Airport, Paris, France at 21:56 local time using an Air Inter flight number.
French Certificate of Airworthiness issued.
Noted at Middelkirke Airport, Ostend, Belgium on a training flight.
Crashed into Mount Pic du Picon at an altitude of approximately 1,000 feet, 2.5 miles from Noirétable and 37 miles west of Lyon, Southern France.
Flight 696 had departed from Bron Airport, Lyon, France for the short evening flight to Aulnat Airport, Clermont-Ferrand, France.
It was raining in the area of Clermont-Ferrand and the visibility was around 5 miles with a low 4/8 cloud ceiling at 2,300 feet and general overcast at 8,000 feet.
Near Clermont-Ferrand the crew had to fly a holding pattern before being cleared to descend to 3600 feet. The crew then reported that they were now at 3,600 feet but nothing more was heard from them by Air Traffic Control.
As part of the investigation, the Air Traffic Control radar traces were reviewed which showed that the aircraft was flying a normal approach pattern but that they were displaced 22 miles to the east of their intended track.
It is suspected that the aircraft's radio compass may have been affected by electrical discharges from the rainfall which blocked out the signal from the Clermont-Ferrand NDB. This probably caused the crew to initiate their descent too early and they then crashed into Mount Pic du Picon at approximately 1,000 feet altitude, 2.5 miles from Noirétable and 27.5 miles east of the airport at 19:20 local time.
All 5 crew and 55 of the 63 passengers sadly died in the crash.
Total time 31,416 hours and 26,335 total landings.