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On August 7, 1994, Pigeon Air Flight 706 was flying from Araba Airport (not Aruba nor a real place) to Rivercoast City with a stopover in Islington. The plane was a McDonnell Douglas MD-11. The flight was carrying 215 passengers and 9 crew. 2 of the passengers were employees for Pigeon Air and were supposed to be flown to Rivercoast. They were allowed to work the flight but still counted as passengers. The plane went through maintenance at 7:06 AM. At 8:54 AM the flight arrived at the gate and started boarding at 8:55 AM. The plane carrying 224 people departed at 9:35 AM.
Captain said as they were pushing back:
-Ehh......ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard this flight to Rivercoast. We are leaving the gate, please have your seatbelts fastened, your seat reclined to its normal position, and your tray table up. The flight time including layover will last about 14 hours.
Flight 706 was nearly written off in September of 1991 following a near-fatal mid-air collision. The plane returned to service in 1992. It was at the time in service with Air Rivercoast, but they sold it to Pigeon Air in 1993.
The plane was cleared to take off at 10:09 AM. -Pigeon 706, you are cleared for take-off.
11:01 AM, Pigeon Air Flight 706 reaches cruising altitude.
-Would you like something?
-Yeah I'd like a Borerio and toast with strawberry jam with a bit of honey.
The 11 crew including the 2 deadheading are prepping lunch. It was a typical lunch situation: the pilot ate creamed potatoes with salad and steak, a stewardess had lamb stew, and a steward took some chips.
Suddenly, about 2 hours into the flight, right before descending, a huge part of the left-middle fuselage broke apart due to metal fatigue from the 1991 incident.
(Wind Gushing)
(Passengers Scream)
-What the heck? screamed the captain out loud.
The plane is spiraling towards the ocean. The plane was diving, flying upside down, and spiraling. The plane recovered right when Islington came into sight.
-Let's get this plane landed quickly, before disaster strikes! said the first officer.
-Pigeon 706, do you need help? asked the ATC of Islington Airport.
-Yes, quickly! replied the captain.
-Roger, Roger, we are sending an emergency immediately. You are clear to land on any runway, Flight 706.
(Heavy Breathing)
-There it is, just 21 miles out! screamed the pilot.
-Gear down.
Suddenly, disaster strikes.
(Left Engine Detaches)
(Passengers Scream)
-God! Pull up! (Pull up, pull up, pull up, stall, stall, stall, bank angle, bank angle, bank angle)
(Impact)
Flight 706 slams into a busy neighborhood gas station 21 miles away from the airport. All 224 people on the plane perished and an additional 55 on the ground. 128 on the ground are injured. The MD-11 was brutally destroyed in an accident. Only the tail section was intact. The ground fatalities were 14 in the gas station, 31 in cars, and 10 in houses. The fire spread throughout the neighborhood and took 6 hours to extinguish.
-Air Traffic Control, we saw a lot of black smoke somewhere in the east.
It took 14 entire minutes for Air Traffic Control to see that Pigeon Air Flight 706 crashed.
Investigators need to figure out why Flight 706 crashed costing the lives of 279 people. Pigeon Air Flight 706 crashed 3 hours after take off.
-How could a massive wide-body aircraft end up in such a brutal accident?
-I know right, it was chaos.
The residents of Islington said that the crash was so chaotic, that it was named as the Islington disaster. The investigators have yet to make a final determination on what caused the crash. Investigators are at the crash site looking for answers, but it's a hard job because some of the debris is under the debris of the destroyed houses. The nose was found intact but burnt on the inside.
-This is impossible.
-Don't worry, there should be a cause.
The black box was destroyed due to the explosion.
-This black box is broken.
Something very strange happened after the crash. The plane's left engine was nowhere to be seen, but it was found six days later in a field 800 meters from the wreckage.
-There it is!
-It's the engine!
-We found it!
The engine was intact but destroyed.
-Why was there an engine in the middle of the field anyway?
-Was it a bombing? A suicide? A metal fatigue?
-Let's check an image of the plane from 1993.
They see a crack in the plane.
-Wait a minute... is that a crack?
-That is!
-It's metal fatigue possibly.
The cause of the crash was revealed in 1995. It was metal fatigue.
In 1997, 3 years after the crash some fishermen off the coast of Islington found the middle section that detached from the plane 3 years earlier. They took it to land and it was later put on display. It was sold for 1,500,000 later sometime in 2016.