South African Airways Flight 201 (SA201), a de Havilland Comet 1, took off at 18:32 UTC on 8 April 1954 from Ciampino Airport in Rome, Italy, en route to Cairo, Egypt, on the second stage of its flight from London, England to Johannesburg, South Africa. The flight crashed at around 19:07 UTC, killing all on board. The flight was operated as a charter by British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) using the aircraft registration G-ALYY ("Yoke Yoke"), with a South African crew of seven, and carrying fourteen passengers.
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👉 South African Airways Flight 201 in the context of Cabin pressure
Cabin pressurization is a process in which conditioned air is pumped into the cabin of an aircraft or spacecraft in order to create a safe and comfortable environment for humans flying at high altitudes. For aircraft, this air is usually bled off from the gas turbine engines at the compressor stage, and for spacecraft, it is carried in high-pressure, often cryogenic, tanks. The air is cooled, humidified, and mixed with recirculated air by one or more environmental control systems before it is distributed to the cabin.
The first experimental pressurization systems saw use during the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1940s, the first commercial aircraft with a pressurized cabin entered service. The practice would become widespread a decade later, particularly with the introduction of the British de Havilland Comet jetliner in 1949. However, two catastrophic failures in 1954 temporarily grounded the Comet worldwide. These failures were investigated and found to be caused by a combination of progressive metal fatigue and aircraft skin stresses caused from pressurization. Improved testing involved multiple full-scale pressurization cycle tests of the entire fuselage in a water tank, and the key engineering principles learned were applied to the design of subsequent jet airliners.