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On the October 4th, 1992, El Al flight 1862 arrived at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport at 1:40 PM. This was a routine stopover from its initial departure location (New York City), which would be followed by an overnight flight to Tel Aviv.
The airplane involved, seen at Los Angeles International Airport on August 23rd, 1992; just 6 weeks before its accident - Photo taken by Torsten Maiwald.
The aircraft that operated this cargo flight was a Boeing 747-258F, registered as 4X-AXG. This jet was manufactured in 1979 (meaning it was 13 years old at the time) and it had accumulated about 45 746 airframe hours in 10 107 flights.
The crew consisted of 3 highly experienced pilots:
?? 59-year-old Captain Yitzhak Fuchs, a veteran airman with over 25 000 hours of flight time. He previously served as a fighter-bomber pilot in the Israeli Air Force during the late 1950s.
?? 32-year-old First Officer Arnon Ohad, who was no rookie himself at over 4 200 hours.
?? And an even more experienced Flight Engineer, 61-year-old Gedalya Sofer, who had 26 000 hours to his name, more than half of them on the B-747.
For the leg from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv, they would also be joined by a non-revenue passenger: 23-year-old ?? Anat Solomon, whose fiancé ?? Itzik Levi worked for El Al in Amsterdam and had used his connections to get her a free flight to Israel aboard the cargo plane. Tomorrow was her 24th birthday, and she was heading back to her home country to prepare for their wedding, which had been scheduled for January.
Aviation Disaster in the Netherlands;
El Al flight 1862 was scheduled to depart at 5:30 PM, but was delayed until 6:20 PM. The aircraft taxied down the runway 01L Zwanenburgbaan (Runway 36C) at 6:14 PM and started the takeoff roll at 6:21 PM.
Map of Schiphol Airport - Made by DerLudonaut.
At 6:28:30 PM, as the B-747 was climbing through 6 500 ft [1 981.2 m], the no. 3 engine and its pylon separated from the wing in an outward and rearward movement, colliding with the no. 4 engine, causing this engine and its pylon to separate as well.
The pylon is a cantilevered structure which attaches the engine to the wing and despite being a piece with a few moving parts, it must withstand enormous stress throughout the course of every flight.
Every engine pylon in the B-747 is attached to the wing by 4 fittings: one at the front, one in the back, and 2 in the middle / midspar. Each of these parts consists of a wing-mounted male lug and a pylon-mounted female lug, which are connected by a fuse pin. The 4 fuse pins are the weakest part of the pylon, but this is by design.
The fuse pins are designed to fail at a lower load threshold than the fittings themselves, ensuring that if the engine is torn off the wing, those pins will fail first, causing the engine to separate cleanly without ripping open the fuel tanks located directly above it. In theory, this should allow an engine to break off upon reaching its design load limit without starting a fire or otherwise compromising the plane’s ability to fly.
The problem is that in an overload situation, the pins are supposed to break in a specific order, and if that order is disrupted, a clean separation won't occur. In fact, the pins at the front and back of the pylon are slightly weaker, enabling them to break first, followed by the 2 pins in the middle, which should allow the engine to detach safely from the airplane.
However, on the Israeli jet, the inboard midspar fuse pin (which is the one closer to the fuselage) had nearly progressed to the point of failure, while the others retained their strength, a sequence which, logically, would produce an altogether different outcome.
Under normal flight loads, the cracked inboard midspar fuse pin on the no. 3 engine pylon broke on its inboard shear face. That meant the loads on the engine pylon were transferred only through the outboard lug of this wing fitting, instead of both lugs. Under the extra stress, the outboard lug of the inboard midspar fitting broke, and the failure cascaded from there, as the outboard midspar fuse pin also broke under the redistributed load, followed by the fore and near fuse pins.
Close-up of the midspar attachments and their failure sequence - Found in the Netherlands Aviation Safety Board's official report.
As a result, the no. 3 engine shot forward under its own momentum, fell back, and slammed directly into the no. 4 engine, tearing it from the right wing as well. Dislodged by the massive impact, a huge section of the leading edge of the wing, from 1 meter [3.28 ft] inboard of the no. 3 engine to another meter [3.28 ft] outboard of the no. 4 engine, ripped out in a matter of seconds. Hydraulic lines burst, pneumatic systems failed, and the B-747’s Krüger flaps (which are critical for low-speed flight) fluttered away into the evening sky.
Far below, boaters near Lake Gooimeer (at the east of Amsterdam) watched in astonishment as the 2 engines tumbled from the jet and plunged into the lake.
Back in the plane, First Officer Ohad asked for an emergency landing in Schiphol and the air traffic control (ATC) assigned them the runway 06. Nonetheless, Captain Fuchs had evidently decided that runway wasn't ideal for landing, thus, First Officer Ohad requested the runway 27 to the ATC.
The crew considered runway 27 as the longest and closest runway at Schiphol. Landing on this one would leave them with a significant tailwind, but Captain Fuchs clearly felt that he was in danger of losing control and needed to get the plane on the ground as quickly as possible.
The aircraft was descending through 5 000 ft [1 524 m] while only 13 km [8.08 miles] from the threshold of runway 27, much too high and close to effect a landing. First Officer Ohad reported that they needed 22 km [13.67 miles] in order to line up and descend, so the ATC was forced to route flight 1862 onto a 360° loop directly over Amsterdam.
Meanwhile, the pilots fought to stay level, but the B-747 was rolling uncontrollably to the right. Captain Fuchs jammed his control column all the way to the left, but it wasn’t working. The crew was losing control of their plane due to 2 converging principles of aerodynamics:
1.- The asymmetric thrust produced by the 2 remaining engines on the left wing, as well as the damage to the right wing, gave the aircraft a strong inherent tendency to roll to the right, a problem which became worse as El Al flight 1862 slowed down for landing. At lower speeds, a plane must fly at a higher angle of attack (the angle of the wings relative to the airflow) in order to maintain lift. But at higher angles of attack, the difference in lifting capability between the intact left wing and the damaged right wing increased, further exacerbating the roll.
2.- The effectiveness of an airplane’s flight controls decreases proportionally with its speed, meaning that as the plane decelerated and the roll moment increased, the pilots' ability to counteract it with the controls became progressively more limited. Their authority was constrained even further by the fact that the outboard ailerons had lost hydraulic power.
Calculations would later show that below 270 knots [310.71 mi/h or 500.04 km/h], the B-747's pull to the right would begin to exceed the combined authority of the ailerons and rudder, and below 260 knots [299.203 mi/h or 481.52 km/h] control would be lost altogether.
The pilots, however, didn't know that both engines had actually broken away from the right wing (as the cockpit's instruments only indicated that they failed). Unaware that decelerating (which is a crucial part of the landing procedure) would result in a disaster, they allowed their speed to drop below 260 knots. Almost immediately, the plane began turning right, veering off the runway heading and into a steepening tilt (a turn that involves a bank of more than 30°).
Captain Fuchs turned his control column all the way to the left and pushed the left rudder pedal to the floor, but it was no use. The aircraft's nose began to fall as the bank increased, and thus, they spiraled in. Seconds later, El Al flight 1862 pitched 70° nose down and banked 90° to the right, then plowing directly into the roof of an 11-story apartment building: the Groeneveen and Klein-Kruitberg flats, located in the Bijlmermeer (colloquially "Bijlmer") neighbourhood.
Oddities;
Back in 1979, Boeing discovered that the fuse pins originally installed on its 747s were suffering from metal fatigue much earlier than expected. In August of that year, the company issued a service bulletin to all operators recommending that the pins be inspected every 2 500 flight hours, and this operation was shortly made mandatory by the US Federal Aviation Administration.
Boeing followed up in 1981 with a new fuse pin design, which they claimed it would terminate the inspection regime. But these pins soon suffered from fatigue as well, and not everyone installed them: El Al, for instance, kept the original pins, and continued to inspect them every 2 500 hours.
The no. 3 engine pylon’s inboard midspar fitting and its associated fuse pin were never found, having been lost in the mud beneath Lake Gooimeer. However, the Netherlands Air Safety Board's investigators stated that the damage to the other fittings could only be explained if the inboard midspar fuse pin had failed first.
Although they could not assess the extent of the fatigue damage on the fuse pin which started it all, investigators did find similar damage on the outboard midspar fuse pin, which was recovered. This fuse pin had a fatigue crack 4 mm [5/32 in] deep, which stretched 50% of the way around its inner bore, apparently originating at several separate points along an abnormal machining groove. When the inboard fuse pin broke and loads were transferred to the outboard pin, this pin failed along the pre-existing crack.
Another question that necessarily arose as to whether El Al should've detected this crack, and by extension the presumed crack in the opposite fuse pin, at its last inspection in June 1992. Boeing contended that the striations in the fuse pin revealed its depth to have been around 3.5 mm [9/64 in] at the time of the inspection, well above the minimum depth of 2.2 mm [3/32 in] required for detection by ultrasound equipment. On the other hand, El Al argued that the striations revealed a rapid growth in the depth of the crack after the inspection was performed.
The Netherlands Aviation Safety Board, dismissing both theories, declared that the fracture in the surface was too corroded to determine how fast the crack grew or how long it had been there.
Another odd detail was the depleted uranium ballast installed in the tail sections of some early B-747s (produced from 1961 to 1981), including the one that operated El Al flight 1862 (manufactured in 1979). Those early models contained depleted uranium as a counterweight in the outboard elevators and other stabilizing areas, and they were the «solution» to a high-speed flutter problem. In later B-747s, those counterweights were replaced by tungsten ones.
Initially, it was contended that this potentially dangerous material could've been dispersed around the crash site, poisoning those who lived nearby. However, «experts» who studied the theory concluded that the depleted uranium would only have been harmful if ingested in the form of dust or vapor, and that the crash was not powerful enough to have disintegrated the uranium to such an extent.
Furthermore, unlike the Flight Data Recorder (FDR), the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) was never found; thus, we only know bits of the crew's conversation thanks to voice recordings of the ATC. The investigators grilled El Al on whether a CVR had in fact been installed, but the documentation showed that «the plane certainly had one». So, the investigators were forced to conclude that the CVR had probably been «destroyed in the crash or the subsequent fire», but they couldn't rule out the possibility that «someone stole it during the chaotic first hours after the accident».
Causalities;
The 4 people onboard the B-747 (the 2 pilots, the flight engineer and the passenger) perished in the crash. Meanwhile, in the Groeneveen and Klein-Kruitberg flats, 26 people sustained non-fatal injuries, of which 11 individuals were injured seriously enough to require hospital treatment.
Firefighters working to extinguish the flames shortly after the crash - Courtesy from Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau (ANP).
The apartment blocks were home to numerous undocumented immigrants, especially from ?? Ghana and ?? Suriname, and there was considerable uncertainty about whether they would be properly accounted for. After examining the recovered remains and cross-referencing with missing person reports, forensic pathologists eventually concluded that 43 people had died "on the ground", resulting in a total of 47 deaths.
Nonetheless, Biljmer's residents to this day believe that an unspecified number of undocumented immigrants weren't included in the death toll because they were unknown to the authorities and they had no relatives in the country who could report them missing.
Cover Up;
Soon after the disaster, it was announced that the cargo aircraft contained fruit, perfumes, gift articles and computer components. Dutch Minister Hanja Maij-Weggen asserted that she was certain that the B-747 contained no military cargo.
However, a cluster of serious human health problems became evident 6 months after the crash. Many residents complained of similar health problems, such as chest pains, joint pain, hair loss, skin rashes, unusual fatigue, vertigo, nausea, red skin spots, sore throat, nephritis and even cancer. The relief workers who began spending significant time at ground-zero immediately after the disaster had similar health problems.
Almost 6 years after the accident, a shocking revelation was made: on September 30th, 1998, editors Harm van den Berg and Karel Knip of the prestigious Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad provided their readers with documentation stating that the airplane was transporting 3 of the 4 components required for the manufacture of sarin nerve gas, a highly lethal chemical weapon outlawed by international convention.
Sarin is known to have been used in the March 1995 Tokyo subway attacks, in which several grams of this nerve gas killed 12 commuters and injured more than 5000 people.
According to documents uncovered by NRC Handelsblad, the aircraft was carrying ten 18.9-litre plastic drums of dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP), and smaller amounts of other sarin precursors: isopropanol and hydrogen fluoride.
The 189 litres [49.93 US gallons] of DMMP (sufficient for the production of 270 kg [595.25 lb] of sarin) had been supplied by Solkatronic Chemicals of Morristown, Pennsylvania; which is also Israel's supplier of the lethal CS and CN gases. Those hazardous chemicals have been used by Israeli military and police forces to kill dozens of Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Although DMMP is subject to stringent export controls by the US government, John Swanciger, executive vice-president of Solkatronic, confirmed that his firm applied for and received the required Department of Commerce export licences. Swanciger also stated that Israel was the only foreign country to have ordered DMMP from his firm.
Israeli PM Netanyahu's media adviser, David Bar-Ilan, immediately issued an angry and categorical denial in response to the NRC Handelsblad's story, emphasising in the strongest possible terms that wasn't carrying Sarin precursors.
The Amsterdam engineering firm Omegam, which investigated the crash site, discovered extensive traces of tributylphosphate (TBP) and concluded that at least several hundred litres of the liquid must have been aboard. TBP is a fairly common industrial chemical which can be employed to recycle uranium and plutonium from spent fuel rods, and it was revealed to be used in Israel thanks to Mordechai Vanunu.
In 1993, Annemie Ummels, a peace activist, and the Laka Foundation revealed that the El Al cargo airplane had been furnished with depleted uranium counterweights. Yet, the scientific spokesperson for the Dutch government, Keverling Buisman, stated that these counterweights stayed intact during a crash and could not have burned in the fire afterwards. According to him, there was no possibility whatsoever that people could have inhaled uranium.
Apparently, no one, except for one voluntary firefighter (unknown name) with a terrible rash on his foot due to standing in crash-related sludge, was diagnosed with a disease related to the disaster. Still, the government had to address the issue of the missing depleted uranium. In 1994, the scientific spokesman for the Dutch government admitted that those counterweights might all have burned after all.
Furthermore, under a special bi-lateral agreement between the Netherlands and Israel dating from the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israeli aircraft were granted special status at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. Thus, El Al had been using the airport to refuel planes en route between Israel and the US. Often on a daily basis, El Al’s cargo planes landed and took off carrying munitions, military technology and other classified loads.
Another of of El Al's privileges at Schiphol were to undergo “different procedures” than other cargo carriers: the cargo of Israeli planes were checked on paper only, though frequently the airway bills didn't match the cargo. One more privilege was known as “flying the El Al way", because of fear of terrorist attacks, El Al aircraft was allowed to land and take off as they saw fit.
This may account for the pilots' choice of a route above a residential area on the evening of the fatal crash. Schiphol’s ATC tower had a different landing runway in mind, but the El Al pilots tried to return to the airport following a different landing track that exposed the plane’s tail to buffeting winds. The crew might have thought they were hit by a missile, and so, the landing track they chose was known to provide the best coverage against terrorists.
Sources;
Admiral Cloudberg (January 1st, 2022). Concrete and Fire: The crash of El Al flight 1862. Medium.
Aviation Safety Network (n.d.). El Al flight 1862. Flight Safety Foundation. https://asn.flightsafety.org/asndb/325426
Esteban Pardo (April 12th, 2022). Nerve agent sarin: Invisible and indiscriminate. Deutsche Welle. https://amp.dw.com/en/chemical-weapon-sarin-an-invisible-and-indiscriminate-killer/a-17124208
Incendiary Materials (n.d.). Depleted uranium. https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/ww2/projects/firebombing/incendiary-materials.htm
Lizzy Bloem (October 4th, 2004). The 1992 El Al Bijlmer crash: a cover-up of a chemical inferno? The Electronic Intifada. https://electronicintifada.net/content/1992-el-al-bijlmer-crash-cover-chemical-inferno/5250
Mouin Rabbani (December 2nd, 1998). Flight 1862 and Israel's chemical secrets. Green Left. https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/flight-1862-and-israels-chemical-secrets
Reporting Assistant for International Nuclear Safeguards (n.d.). Aircraft Industry - Equipment that May Use Depleted Uranium. National Nuclear Security Administration. https://rains.doe.gov/page/guidance-aircraft
The airplane involved, seen at Los Angeles International Airport on August 23rd, 1992; just 6 weeks before its accident - Photo taken by Torsten Maiwald.
The aircraft that operated this cargo flight was a Boeing 747-258F, registered as 4X-AXG. This jet was manufactured in 1979 (meaning it was 13 years old at the time) and it had accumulated about 45 746 airframe hours in 10 107 flights.
The crew consisted of 3 highly experienced pilots:
?? 59-year-old Captain Yitzhak Fuchs, a veteran airman with over 25 000 hours of flight time. He previously served as a fighter-bomber pilot in the Israeli Air Force during the late 1950s.
?? 32-year-old First Officer Arnon Ohad, who was no rookie himself at over 4 200 hours.
?? And an even more experienced Flight Engineer, 61-year-old Gedalya Sofer, who had 26 000 hours to his name, more than half of them on the B-747.
For the leg from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv, they would also be joined by a non-revenue passenger: 23-year-old ?? Anat Solomon, whose fiancé ?? Itzik Levi worked for El Al in Amsterdam and had used his connections to get her a free flight to Israel aboard the cargo plane. Tomorrow was her 24th birthday, and she was heading back to her home country to prepare for their wedding, which had been scheduled for January.
Aviation Disaster in the Netherlands;
El Al flight 1862 was scheduled to depart at 5:30 PM, but was delayed until 6:20 PM. The aircraft taxied down the runway 01L Zwanenburgbaan (Runway 36C) at 6:14 PM and started the takeoff roll at 6:21 PM.
Map of Schiphol Airport - Made by DerLudonaut.
At 6:28:30 PM, as the B-747 was climbing through 6 500 ft [1 981.2 m], the no. 3 engine and its pylon separated from the wing in an outward and rearward movement, colliding with the no. 4 engine, causing this engine and its pylon to separate as well.
The pylon is a cantilevered structure which attaches the engine to the wing and despite being a piece with a few moving parts, it must withstand enormous stress throughout the course of every flight.
Every engine pylon in the B-747 is attached to the wing by 4 fittings: one at the front, one in the back, and 2 in the middle / midspar. Each of these parts consists of a wing-mounted male lug and a pylon-mounted female lug, which are connected by a fuse pin. The 4 fuse pins are the weakest part of the pylon, but this is by design.
The fuse pins are designed to fail at a lower load threshold than the fittings themselves, ensuring that if the engine is torn off the wing, those pins will fail first, causing the engine to separate cleanly without ripping open the fuel tanks located directly above it. In theory, this should allow an engine to break off upon reaching its design load limit without starting a fire or otherwise compromising the plane’s ability to fly.
The problem is that in an overload situation, the pins are supposed to break in a specific order, and if that order is disrupted, a clean separation won't occur. In fact, the pins at the front and back of the pylon are slightly weaker, enabling them to break first, followed by the 2 pins in the middle, which should allow the engine to detach safely from the airplane.
However, on the Israeli jet, the inboard midspar fuse pin (which is the one closer to the fuselage) had nearly progressed to the point of failure, while the others retained their strength, a sequence which, logically, would produce an altogether different outcome.
Under normal flight loads, the cracked inboard midspar fuse pin on the no. 3 engine pylon broke on its inboard shear face. That meant the loads on the engine pylon were transferred only through the outboard lug of this wing fitting, instead of both lugs. Under the extra stress, the outboard lug of the inboard midspar fitting broke, and the failure cascaded from there, as the outboard midspar fuse pin also broke under the redistributed load, followed by the fore and near fuse pins.
Close-up of the midspar attachments and their failure sequence - Found in the Netherlands Aviation Safety Board's official report.
As a result, the no. 3 engine shot forward under its own momentum, fell back, and slammed directly into the no. 4 engine, tearing it from the right wing as well. Dislodged by the massive impact, a huge section of the leading edge of the wing, from 1 meter [3.28 ft] inboard of the no. 3 engine to another meter [3.28 ft] outboard of the no. 4 engine, ripped out in a matter of seconds. Hydraulic lines burst, pneumatic systems failed, and the B-747’s Krüger flaps (which are critical for low-speed flight) fluttered away into the evening sky.
Far below, boaters near Lake Gooimeer (at the east of Amsterdam) watched in astonishment as the 2 engines tumbled from the jet and plunged into the lake.
Back in the plane, First Officer Ohad asked for an emergency landing in Schiphol and the air traffic control (ATC) assigned them the runway 06. Nonetheless, Captain Fuchs had evidently decided that runway wasn't ideal for landing, thus, First Officer Ohad requested the runway 27 to the ATC.
The crew considered runway 27 as the longest and closest runway at Schiphol. Landing on this one would leave them with a significant tailwind, but Captain Fuchs clearly felt that he was in danger of losing control and needed to get the plane on the ground as quickly as possible.
The aircraft was descending through 5 000 ft [1 524 m] while only 13 km [8.08 miles] from the threshold of runway 27, much too high and close to effect a landing. First Officer Ohad reported that they needed 22 km [13.67 miles] in order to line up and descend, so the ATC was forced to route flight 1862 onto a 360° loop directly over Amsterdam.
Meanwhile, the pilots fought to stay level, but the B-747 was rolling uncontrollably to the right. Captain Fuchs jammed his control column all the way to the left, but it wasn’t working. The crew was losing control of their plane due to 2 converging principles of aerodynamics:
1.- The asymmetric thrust produced by the 2 remaining engines on the left wing, as well as the damage to the right wing, gave the aircraft a strong inherent tendency to roll to the right, a problem which became worse as El Al flight 1862 slowed down for landing. At lower speeds, a plane must fly at a higher angle of attack (the angle of the wings relative to the airflow) in order to maintain lift. But at higher angles of attack, the difference in lifting capability between the intact left wing and the damaged right wing increased, further exacerbating the roll.
2.- The effectiveness of an airplane’s flight controls decreases proportionally with its speed, meaning that as the plane decelerated and the roll moment increased, the pilots' ability to counteract it with the controls became progressively more limited. Their authority was constrained even further by the fact that the outboard ailerons had lost hydraulic power.
Calculations would later show that below 270 knots [310.71 mi/h or 500.04 km/h], the B-747's pull to the right would begin to exceed the combined authority of the ailerons and rudder, and below 260 knots [299.203 mi/h or 481.52 km/h] control would be lost altogether.
The pilots, however, didn't know that both engines had actually broken away from the right wing (as the cockpit's instruments only indicated that they failed). Unaware that decelerating (which is a crucial part of the landing procedure) would result in a disaster, they allowed their speed to drop below 260 knots. Almost immediately, the plane began turning right, veering off the runway heading and into a steepening tilt (a turn that involves a bank of more than 30°).
Captain Fuchs turned his control column all the way to the left and pushed the left rudder pedal to the floor, but it was no use. The aircraft's nose began to fall as the bank increased, and thus, they spiraled in. Seconds later, El Al flight 1862 pitched 70° nose down and banked 90° to the right, then plowing directly into the roof of an 11-story apartment building: the Groeneveen and Klein-Kruitberg flats, located in the Bijlmermeer (colloquially "Bijlmer") neighbourhood.
Oddities;
Back in 1979, Boeing discovered that the fuse pins originally installed on its 747s were suffering from metal fatigue much earlier than expected. In August of that year, the company issued a service bulletin to all operators recommending that the pins be inspected every 2 500 flight hours, and this operation was shortly made mandatory by the US Federal Aviation Administration.
Boeing followed up in 1981 with a new fuse pin design, which they claimed it would terminate the inspection regime. But these pins soon suffered from fatigue as well, and not everyone installed them: El Al, for instance, kept the original pins, and continued to inspect them every 2 500 hours.
The no. 3 engine pylon’s inboard midspar fitting and its associated fuse pin were never found, having been lost in the mud beneath Lake Gooimeer. However, the Netherlands Air Safety Board's investigators stated that the damage to the other fittings could only be explained if the inboard midspar fuse pin had failed first.
Although they could not assess the extent of the fatigue damage on the fuse pin which started it all, investigators did find similar damage on the outboard midspar fuse pin, which was recovered. This fuse pin had a fatigue crack 4 mm [5/32 in] deep, which stretched 50% of the way around its inner bore, apparently originating at several separate points along an abnormal machining groove. When the inboard fuse pin broke and loads were transferred to the outboard pin, this pin failed along the pre-existing crack.
Another question that necessarily arose as to whether El Al should've detected this crack, and by extension the presumed crack in the opposite fuse pin, at its last inspection in June 1992. Boeing contended that the striations in the fuse pin revealed its depth to have been around 3.5 mm [9/64 in] at the time of the inspection, well above the minimum depth of 2.2 mm [3/32 in] required for detection by ultrasound equipment. On the other hand, El Al argued that the striations revealed a rapid growth in the depth of the crack after the inspection was performed.
The Netherlands Aviation Safety Board, dismissing both theories, declared that the fracture in the surface was too corroded to determine how fast the crack grew or how long it had been there.
Another odd detail was the depleted uranium ballast installed in the tail sections of some early B-747s (produced from 1961 to 1981), including the one that operated El Al flight 1862 (manufactured in 1979). Those early models contained depleted uranium as a counterweight in the outboard elevators and other stabilizing areas, and they were the «solution» to a high-speed flutter problem. In later B-747s, those counterweights were replaced by tungsten ones.
Initially, it was contended that this potentially dangerous material could've been dispersed around the crash site, poisoning those who lived nearby. However, «experts» who studied the theory concluded that the depleted uranium would only have been harmful if ingested in the form of dust or vapor, and that the crash was not powerful enough to have disintegrated the uranium to such an extent.
Furthermore, unlike the Flight Data Recorder (FDR), the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) was never found; thus, we only know bits of the crew's conversation thanks to voice recordings of the ATC. The investigators grilled El Al on whether a CVR had in fact been installed, but the documentation showed that «the plane certainly had one». So, the investigators were forced to conclude that the CVR had probably been «destroyed in the crash or the subsequent fire», but they couldn't rule out the possibility that «someone stole it during the chaotic first hours after the accident».
Causalities;
The 4 people onboard the B-747 (the 2 pilots, the flight engineer and the passenger) perished in the crash. Meanwhile, in the Groeneveen and Klein-Kruitberg flats, 26 people sustained non-fatal injuries, of which 11 individuals were injured seriously enough to require hospital treatment.
Firefighters working to extinguish the flames shortly after the crash - Courtesy from Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau (ANP).
The apartment blocks were home to numerous undocumented immigrants, especially from ?? Ghana and ?? Suriname, and there was considerable uncertainty about whether they would be properly accounted for. After examining the recovered remains and cross-referencing with missing person reports, forensic pathologists eventually concluded that 43 people had died "on the ground", resulting in a total of 47 deaths.
Nonetheless, Biljmer's residents to this day believe that an unspecified number of undocumented immigrants weren't included in the death toll because they were unknown to the authorities and they had no relatives in the country who could report them missing.
Cover Up;
Soon after the disaster, it was announced that the cargo aircraft contained fruit, perfumes, gift articles and computer components. Dutch Minister Hanja Maij-Weggen asserted that she was certain that the B-747 contained no military cargo.
However, a cluster of serious human health problems became evident 6 months after the crash. Many residents complained of similar health problems, such as chest pains, joint pain, hair loss, skin rashes, unusual fatigue, vertigo, nausea, red skin spots, sore throat, nephritis and even cancer. The relief workers who began spending significant time at ground-zero immediately after the disaster had similar health problems.
Almost 6 years after the accident, a shocking revelation was made: on September 30th, 1998, editors Harm van den Berg and Karel Knip of the prestigious Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad provided their readers with documentation stating that the airplane was transporting 3 of the 4 components required for the manufacture of sarin nerve gas, a highly lethal chemical weapon outlawed by international convention.
Sarin is known to have been used in the March 1995 Tokyo subway attacks, in which several grams of this nerve gas killed 12 commuters and injured more than 5000 people.
According to documents uncovered by NRC Handelsblad, the aircraft was carrying ten 18.9-litre plastic drums of dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP), and smaller amounts of other sarin precursors: isopropanol and hydrogen fluoride.
The 189 litres [49.93 US gallons] of DMMP (sufficient for the production of 270 kg [595.25 lb] of sarin) had been supplied by Solkatronic Chemicals of Morristown, Pennsylvania; which is also Israel's supplier of the lethal CS and CN gases. Those hazardous chemicals have been used by Israeli military and police forces to kill dozens of Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Although DMMP is subject to stringent export controls by the US government, John Swanciger, executive vice-president of Solkatronic, confirmed that his firm applied for and received the required Department of Commerce export licences. Swanciger also stated that Israel was the only foreign country to have ordered DMMP from his firm.
Israeli PM Netanyahu's media adviser, David Bar-Ilan, immediately issued an angry and categorical denial in response to the NRC Handelsblad's story, emphasising in the strongest possible terms that wasn't carrying Sarin precursors.
The Amsterdam engineering firm Omegam, which investigated the crash site, discovered extensive traces of tributylphosphate (TBP) and concluded that at least several hundred litres of the liquid must have been aboard. TBP is a fairly common industrial chemical which can be employed to recycle uranium and plutonium from spent fuel rods, and it was revealed to be used in Israel thanks to Mordechai Vanunu.
In 1993, Annemie Ummels, a peace activist, and the Laka Foundation revealed that the El Al cargo airplane had been furnished with depleted uranium counterweights. Yet, the scientific spokesperson for the Dutch government, Keverling Buisman, stated that these counterweights stayed intact during a crash and could not have burned in the fire afterwards. According to him, there was no possibility whatsoever that people could have inhaled uranium.
Apparently, no one, except for one voluntary firefighter (unknown name) with a terrible rash on his foot due to standing in crash-related sludge, was diagnosed with a disease related to the disaster. Still, the government had to address the issue of the missing depleted uranium. In 1994, the scientific spokesman for the Dutch government admitted that those counterweights might all have burned after all.
Furthermore, under a special bi-lateral agreement between the Netherlands and Israel dating from the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israeli aircraft were granted special status at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. Thus, El Al had been using the airport to refuel planes en route between Israel and the US. Often on a daily basis, El Al’s cargo planes landed and took off carrying munitions, military technology and other classified loads.
Another of of El Al's privileges at Schiphol were to undergo “different procedures” than other cargo carriers: the cargo of Israeli planes were checked on paper only, though frequently the airway bills didn't match the cargo. One more privilege was known as “flying the El Al way", because of fear of terrorist attacks, El Al aircraft was allowed to land and take off as they saw fit.
This may account for the pilots' choice of a route above a residential area on the evening of the fatal crash. Schiphol’s ATC tower had a different landing runway in mind, but the El Al pilots tried to return to the airport following a different landing track that exposed the plane’s tail to buffeting winds. The crew might have thought they were hit by a missile, and so, the landing track they chose was known to provide the best coverage against terrorists.
Sources;
Admiral Cloudberg (January 1st, 2022). Concrete and Fire: The crash of El Al flight 1862. Medium.
Aviation Safety Network (n.d.). El Al flight 1862. Flight Safety Foundation. https://asn.flightsafety.org/asndb/325426
Esteban Pardo (April 12th, 2022). Nerve agent sarin: Invisible and indiscriminate. Deutsche Welle. https://amp.dw.com/en/chemical-weapon-sarin-an-invisible-and-indiscriminate-killer/a-17124208
Incendiary Materials (n.d.). Depleted uranium. https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/ww2/projects/firebombing/incendiary-materials.htm
Lizzy Bloem (October 4th, 2004). The 1992 El Al Bijlmer crash: a cover-up of a chemical inferno? The Electronic Intifada. https://electronicintifada.net/content/1992-el-al-bijlmer-crash-cover-chemical-inferno/5250
Mouin Rabbani (December 2nd, 1998). Flight 1862 and Israel's chemical secrets. Green Left. https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/flight-1862-and-israels-chemical-secrets
Reporting Assistant for International Nuclear Safeguards (n.d.). Aircraft Industry - Equipment that May Use Depleted Uranium. National Nuclear Security Administration. https://rains.doe.gov/page/guidance-aircraft
