Were there any fatalities in the 1974-02-27 Rockwell Sabreliner 40 accident?

The accident was fatal, resulting in 9 fatalities.

What aircraft was involved and where did it happen?

The accident on 1974-02-27 involved a Rockwell Sabreliner 40, registration CF-BRL, operated by Brethour Realty Services, at Frobisher Bay, Canada.

1974-02-27: Rockwell Sabreliner 40 (CF-BRL) — Brethour Realty Services — Frobisher Bay, Canada

9 fatalitiesFrobisher Bay, CanadaFlight

A flight traveling from Stuttgart to Toronto crashed into a hillside near Frobisher, resulting in the deaths of all nine people on board.

What happened

A flight consisting of two pilots and seven passengers was operating a multi-leg route from Stuttgart to Toronto, with scheduled stops in Shannon, Keflavik, and Frobisher. Following an 18-minute delay on the ground at Keflavik, the CF-BRL departed at 2131Z on 27 February. The aircraft was cruising at FL390 using a GNS-200 navigation system.

While flying approximately 285 NM east of Frobisher, the onboard GNS-200 system experienced a 10-minute period of unreliability due to signal dropouts from low-frequency ground stations. As the aircraft approached the Canadian coast, radar tracking showed a slight left turn, but the aircraft did not correct its course back toward Frobisher as anticipated.

During this period, the primary high-power non-directional beacon at Frobisher went offline, and the standby transmitter failed to activate. Although air traffic control issued a descent clearance at 0014Z, no notification regarding the inactive radio navigation aids was provided to the crew. After descending, the flight crew reported they could not receive signals from the Frobische radio beacons or DME. The aircraft eventually lost all radio communication with Frobisher Aeradio.

At approximately 0040Z, the CF-BRL was observed circling at a low altitude over Brevoort Island. The crew later reported to another airline jet that they were lost and running low on fuel. After briefly regaining contact with a different radio range station, the crew began a descent toward Frobisher. At 0056Z, the pilot reported that both fuel warning lights were illuminated. The aircraft struck a hillside at 0058Z, resulting in nine fatalities.

Findings

The aircraft exhausted its fuel supply while attempting to locate Frobisher due to 30 minutes of low-altitude maneuvering.
The crew initiated a descent based on inaccurate information from the GNS system without realizing the error.
The primary radio beacon at Frobisher was non-functional during the descent, and the crew had not been notified of this outage.
Maintenance errors contributed to the navigation failure, as the main transmitter's circuit breaker was incorrectly rated, and a faulty interlock prevented the standby unit from operating.
The crew relied on an unapproved radio range station that was not listed on official flight charts.
The flight did not maintain the required fuel reserves mandated by Air Regulation 549.

Probable cause

The accident was caused by the exhaustion of fuel during low-altitude searching, compounded by the crew's reliance on inaccurate navigation data and an unannounced outage of the primary radio beacon.