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| Date: | Tuesday 8 August 1978 |
| Time: | |
| Type: |  McDonnell Douglas DC-8-62 |
| Owner/operator: | Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), opf Scanair |
| Registration: | SE-DBG |
| MSN: | 45921/322 |
| Year of manufacture: | 1967 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 189 |
| Other fatalities: | 0 |
| Aircraft damage: | None |
| Category: | Accident |
| Location: | near Bratislava -
 Slovakia
|
| Phase: | En route |
| Nature: | Passenger - Non-Scheduled/charter/Air Taxi |
| Departure airport: | Stockholm-Arlanda Airport (ARN/ESSA) |
| Rhodes | |
| Investigating agency: | SHK |
| Confidence Rating: |  Accident investigation report completed and information captured |
During a passenger flight from Stockholm to Rhodes an aerodynamic separation occurred at the wingtips while descending through Bratislava control area from 39,000 ft in a turn at a speed of Mach 0.86–0.87. This flow separation caused the aircraft’s nose to pitch up, and the descent transitioned into a climb. The autopilot automatically disengaged.
When the crew manually countered the nose-up movement and re-established the descent, the aircraft experienced negative G-forces. As a result, unrestrained passengers and loose objects in the cabin were thrown against the cabin ceiling before falling back onto their seats.
Five passengers were seriously injured, some had spinal fractures. Three crew and 32 passengers suffered minor injuries.
The unintentional nose-up pitch caused by transonic flow separation is a phenomenon associated with swept-wing aircraft. Insufficient awareness of this effect may have contributed to the aircraft being maneuvered in a way that led to the injuries.
Accident investigation:
 |
|
Sources:
SHK
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 26-Oct-2025 13:57 | ASN | Added |
| 26-Oct-2025 15:19 | ASN | Updated [Cn, Operator, Total fatalities, Total occupants, Location, Country, Phase, Nature, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Damage, Narrative, ] |
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