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![]() Aircraft, similar to the one involved in this incident, photographed while under operation by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in 1954. | |
Occurrence | |
---|---|
Date | 21 November 1959 [1] |
Summary | Controlled flight into terrain |
Site | Aramoun, Lebanon [1] |
Aircraft | |
Aircraft type | Douglas DC-4 [1] |
Operator | Ariana Afghan Airlines [1] |
Registration | YA-BAG [1] |
Flight origin | Beirut International Airport, Lebanon |
1st stopover | Mehrabad International Airport, Iran |
2nd stopover | Kandahar International Airport, Afghanistan |
Destination | Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan |
Passengers | 22 |
Crew | 5 |
Fatalities | 26 (24 initially, 2 in hospital) [1] |
Survivors | 1 [1] |
Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 202 (YA-BAG) was a scheduled international civilian passenger flight from Lebanon to Afghanistan on 21 November 1959. It took off from Beirut and was destined for Kabul, with a stopover at Mehrabad in Iran and another stopover at Kandahar in Afghanistan. Two minutes after takeoff, [1] the aircraft, a Douglas DC-4, crashed into the side of a hill in Aramoun. The impact caused a fire to break out in the cabin, killing 24 of the flight's 27 total occupants on the scene. The three initial survivors were taken to a hospital in Beirut shortly after the crash, and two of them later succumbed to their injuries.
An investigation was launched into the cause of the crash; the report found that a day earlier, after arriving from Frankfurt, West Germany, the flight was delayed for 20 hours due to technical difficulties. Two causes were proposed: [1]
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