1982-03-11

Crash site Sea near Gamvik, Norway
Airline Widerøes Flyveselskap
Aircraft De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter  –  LN-BNK
Route Kirkenes  –  Vadsø  –  Berlevåg  –  Mehamn  –  Honningsvåg  –  Alta
Crew 2  –  0 survivors
Passengers 13  –  0 survivors

 

The crash

On the southbound flight between Berlevåg and Mehamn the plane left Berlevåg at 13:19. The last radio contact was at 13:23 and 4 minutes later the plane crashed into the sea 6 km SE of Gamvik.
A search was immediately initiated and shortly after some debris was found in the sea. Two days later the wreckage was located at a depth of 45 meters of water and it could be raised from the seabed.
The accident investigators concluded that the reason for the crash was due to a structural failure of the plane´s tail caused by severe turbulence.

 

The mail

Some of the mail was recovered. The first mailbag found was marked “Mehamn” and in total four bags of mail were handed over by the accident commission to the post office. Most of this was newspapers, which had been totally ruined. Between 30 and 40 items of mail which had not been badly soaked had addresses that still could be identified. They were mainly letters to Kjöllefjord and they were forwarded to the recipients enclosed in plastic covers and sent with an accompanying label.
The ruined newspapers and the mail where addresses were illegible were destroyed at the post offices in Kjöllefjord and Honningsvåg.
I have not seen any mail from this crash.

 

 

A.
Norwegian label.
Size:  ?

Reconstructed illustration.

Translation:
Enclosed item was in a mail bag found in the sea after the accident of the Wiederø plan (WF 933) Thursday 11-3-1982

 

 

 

 

Examples of mail

No mail has so far been recorded.