Haunting last words of pilot seconds before plane hit block of flats killing 43 people

When a plane carrying four people on board crashed, it caused a horrifically deadly aviation disaster as the aircraft struck an apartment building.

On 4 October, 1992, a freighter variant of the Boeing 747 'jumbo jet' took off from Amsterdam and shortly afterwards crashed into a block of flats.

The plane was El Al Flight 1862, which had originally departed from JFK International Airport in New York and had stopped over in Amsterdam ahead of the final leg of the journey towards Tel Aviv, Israel.

There had already been problems with the flight as the aircraft's speed had fluctuated while the autopilot had been engaged.

The crew also had issues with the radio and the plane's third engine, which would later spell disaster.

Having crossed the Atlantic Ocean, El Al Flight 1862 landed safely in Amsterdam at around 2.40pm local time where it was refuelled and the crew changed, while another El Al employee joined as a passenger to travel to her wedding.

The cargo plane lost two engines and crashed into people's homes. (COR/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)

Set to depart again at 5.30pm local time the same day, the plane was delayed from taking off for about 50 minutes.

Just seven minutes after taking to the skies disaster struck, as the aircraft was climbing and at 6.28pm the problematic third engine separated from the right wing of the plane.

As it fell the third engine struck the fourth, tearing it off as well.

Witnesses on the ground said they heard a sharp bang and a momentary flash of fire from the plane's right wing before seeing two objects falling to the ground.

Some witnesses to the disaster initially thought they were people parachuting out of the 747, but on closer inspection could see they were actually two of the plane's engines.

On board El Al Flight 1862 the crew sent out an emergency warning and tried to turn back to the airport for a landing, thinking their engines had failed but not realising they'd been torn off altogether.

Too high to make an emergency landing at first, they started circling the airport to lower their altitude and attempt a landing but due to the damage the aircraft had sustained they started to lose control of the plane.

The site of the plane crash which killed all four people on board and 39 on the ground. (Patrick Robert/Sygma/CORBIS/Sygma via Getty Images)

Fourteen minutes after the plane had taken off it crashed between two blocks of flats in Amsterdam.

In the last contact from the flight the plane's first officer said: "Going down, 1862, going down, going down, copied, going down."

In the background the captain could be heard giving the order to lower the aircraft's landing gear.

As the 747 crashed towards the ground, air traffic control tried several times to re-establish contact and when it impacted, the control tower told air traffic control: "It is over."

All four people on board the plane were killed, as were 39 people on the ground at the impact site.

On top of that, 26 people were injured, with 11 requiring hospital treatment.

A subsequent investigation into the causes of the crash found that fuse pins holding the engine to the wing had been overloaded and suffered for it, as normally if an engine falls from a plane the pins are meant to allow it to be done cleanly so it doesn't cause further damage to the aircraft.

Topics: World News, History

Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

@MrJoeHarker