Plane G-ALYY / flight 6011 crash in Stromboli (Crew 7 & Passengers 14)

G-ALYY was leased from B.O.A.C. to South African Airways. Flight SA201 was on its way from London to Johannesburg. After a fuel stop in Rome the plane took-off, but only 36 minutes later the radio-contact was interrupted in the area of Stromboli.

The next morning remains were found in the sea. Since the sea was at this place as deep as 1000 meters, no parts of the aircraft could be inspected. Only four days after the crash the Comet flights were again suspended, one of the reasons being the similarities to the YP crash. G-ALYY had only performed 2704 flighthours. A very intensive flight test program was performed in order to find out the reason of the YY and YP crashes, with no special conclusion.

Only after a very long expensive investigations, which included the assembly of the remains of the crashed YP and the underwater stress test of the YU Comet which came from B.O.A.C. Finally the fuselage of YU broke up on a sharp edge of the forward escape-hatch. After that this rupture was repaired the tests were restarted, but only shortly afterwards the fuselage broke up. This time the rupture started at the upper edge of a window and was three meters long.

The YP and YY crashes were due to metal fatigue, which took place because of the crystalline changes in the fuselage skin. They were amplified by the high speed and altitude the Comets were operated. The metal fatigue resulted in ruptures of the fuselage, this had as a consequence a terrible decompression at 33Kft, tearing up the plane with all known consequences.