Pakistan International Airlines Flight 740

Pakistan International Airlines Flight 740
	The aircraft involved in the accident seen on 1 March 1972, while still leased to British Caledonian Airways.
Accident
Date	26 November 1979
Summary	In-flight fire (source of fire's ignition undetermined)
Site	Near Taif, Mecca Province, Saudi Arabia
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Boeing 707-340C
Operator	Pakistan International Airlines
IATA flight No.	PK740
ICAO flight No.	PIA740
Call sign	Pakistan 740
Registration	AP-AWZ
Flight origin	Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano, Nigeria
Stopover	King Abdulaziz International Airport, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Destination	Jinnah International Airport, Karachi, Pakistan
Occupants	156
Passengers	145
Crew	11
Fatalities	156
Survivors	0

Last updated October 12, 2023

Pakistan International Airlines Flight 740 was a Hajj pilgrimage flight from Kano, Nigeria to Karachi, Pakistan with an intermediate stopover in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Operated by Pakistan International Airlines, on 26 November 1979, the Boeing 707-340C serving the route crashed shortly after takeoff from Jeddah International Airport. All 156 people on board were killed.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was a nine-year-old Boeing 707-340C with serial number 20275 and serial 844. It was built in 1970 and on July 30 made its first flight. Ten days later, on 10 August, it was delivered to Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and was registered as AP-AWB. It was re-registered as AP-AWZ in 1972 after being leased for several months to another airline. The aircraft had 30,700 flight hours at the time of the crash.^[1]^[2]

Crash

The airliner operated as flight 740 from Jeddah to Karachi, during which it carried pilgrims returning from the Hajj. There were a total of 156 people on board, 11 crew members and 145 passengers. At 01:29, flight 740 departed from Jeddah and began to climb to the planned flight level (FL) of 37,000 feet (11,000 metres). The first warning of an emergency came at 01:47, 21 minutes after takeoff, when a flight attendant informed the pilots that a fire had started in the rear of the cabin. After reporting to air traffic control (ATC) about the situation on board and beginning an emergency descent from its current altitude of 30,000 feet (9,100 metres), the crew received permission to descend to a height of 4,000 feet (1,200 metres). The pilot radioed a request to return to Jeddah because smoke was coming into the cabin and cockpit. At 02:03 the crew sent a distress signal. The Jeddah control tower heard the pilot shout "Mayday! Mayday!" before the radio went silent.^[3] Approximately one minute after this transmission, the aircraft crashed into an area of rocks located 48 kilometres (30 miles; 26 nautical miles) north of the city of Taif and at an altitude of 3,000 feet (910 metres). All 156 people on board died. The accident remains, to date, the third-deadliest plane crash on Saudi Arabian soil and the third-deadliest Boeing 707 crash.^[2]

Cause

The cause of the accident was an in-flight fire in the cabin area, which, through its intensity and rapid extension, eventually incapacitated the flight crew. The cause of the cabin fire was not determined. The most likely version is that there was a gas leak or kerosene from one of the pilgrims' stoves. The fuel leakage may have been a result of the decrease in cabin pressure. A malfunction in the electrical circuits was also considered as an ignition source, but could not be confirmed because of the design of the aircraft's electrical systems and protection devices. Terrorism was ruled out as a cause, as there was no evidence that incendiary devices were used.^[2]

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This is a list of aviation-related events from 1979.

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Turkish Airlines Flight 5904 was a Boeing 737-400 on an international repositioning flight from Adana Şakirpaşa Airport in Adana, Turkey to King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia which crashed on 7 April 1999 in the vicinity of Ceyhan, Adana Province in southern Turkey some eight minutes after takeoff. The flight was on its way to Saudi Arabia to pick up pilgrims from Jeddah, and as such took off without any passengers on board. All six crew members were killed in the crash.

Pakistan International Airlines Flight 705 (PK705) was a Boeing 720 airliner that crashed while descending to land at Cairo International Airport on 20 May 1965. Of the 127 passengers and crew on board, all but 6 were killed.

Middle East Airlines Flight 438 was an international passenger flight operated by a Boeing 720 from Beirut, Lebanon, to Muscat, Oman, with a stopover in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. On 1 January 1976 the aircraft operating the flight was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 81 people on board. The bombers were never identified.

Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 was a chartered passenger flight from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Sokoto, Nigeria, on 11 July 1991, which caught fire shortly after takeoff from King Abdulaziz International Airport and crashed while attempting to return for an emergency landing, killing all 247 passengers and 14 crew members on board. The aircraft was a Douglas DC-8 operated by Nationair Canada for Nigeria Airways. Flight 2120 is the deadliest accident involving a DC-8 and remains the deadliest aviation disaster involving a Canadian airline.

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The Kano air disaster was a chartered Boeing 707 passenger flight on 22 January 1973 that crashed while attempting to land at Kano International Airport. It is the deadliest aviation disaster ever to take place in Nigeria, as 176 passengers and crew perished in the crash. There were 26 survivors.

Nigeria Airways Flight 9805 was a cargo flight from King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah to Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Nigeria. On 19 December 1994, the Boeing 707-3F9C flying the route suffered an in-flight fire and crashed into a marshland near Kiri Kasama, Hadejia LGA, Nigeria. One of the three crew members and both passengers died. The investigation determined that a heat generating substance was the probable cause.

American Airlines Flight 1502 was a crew training flight from Idlewild International Airport. On January 28, 1961, the Boeing 707 operating the flight crashed out of control into the Atlantic Ocean 9.5 miles (15.3 km) west of Montauk Point, New York, and all six crew on board were killed. The cause of the crash was never officially determined. Flight 1502 would be the second of three 707s that American lost in a three-year period in the New York area.

On 21 January 1972, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 registered as TC-JAC operated by Turkish Airlines crashed on approach while trying to make an emergency landing at Adana Airport. The aircraft was en-route from Kandara Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Ankara Esenboğa Airport with a stopover at Damascus Airport with only five crew members on board after carrying passengers to Hajj the day before.

References

↑ "AP-AWZ Registration Details". All Pakistan Aircraft Registration Marks. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
1 2 3 Ranter, Harro. "ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 707-340C AP-AWZ Taif". Aviation Safety Network. Flight Safety Foundation. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
↑ "NO SURVIVORS FOUND IN PAKISTANI PLANE". The New York Times. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Reuters. 27 November 1979. p. 11. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2 June 2016.

External links

Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network

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[1] "AP-AWZ Registration Details". All Pakistan Aircraft Registration Marks. Retrieved 16 November 2013.

[ASN-2] 1 2 3 Ranter, Harro. "ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 707-340C AP-AWZ Taif". Aviation Safety Network. Flight Safety Foundation. Retrieved 2 June 2016.

[NYT-3] "NO SURVIVORS FOUND IN PAKISTANI PLANE". The New York Times. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Reuters. 27 November 1979. p. 11. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2 June 2016.

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