Nicosia plane disaster
Coordinates: 35 ° 6 ′ 29.8 ″ N , 33 ° 17 ′ 13.5 ″ E
| Nicosia plane disaster | |
|---|---|
 The crashed Bristol Britannia in 1965 |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | CFIT |
| place |
Nicosia , Cyprus
|
| date | April 20, 1967 |
| Fatalities | 126 |
| Survivors | 4th |
| Injured | 4th |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Bristol Britannia 313 |
| operator |
Globe Air , Switzerland
|
| Mark | HB-ITB |
| Passengers | 120 |
| crew | 10 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
During the airplane disaster in Nicosia on April 20, 1967, a Bristol Britannia 313 of the Swiss Globe Air was blown into the ground near Nicosia airport in Cyprus. The accident is still considered to be the most serious aircraft accident in Cyprus and the Bristol Britannia.
The aircraft
The Bristol Britannia with the aircraft registration HB-ITB was built in 1957 and had flown 20,632 hours by the time of the accident.
Flight history
The plane was from Bangkok Airport via Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Bombay (now Mumbai) on its way to Zurich with a stopover at Cairo International Airport in Egypt. The pilots decided to land at Nicosia Airport in Cyprus due to the bad weather in Cairo. Bad weather also prevailed at Nicosia Airport on April 20, 1967 at 1:13 a.m., with the aircraft breaking off a landing attempt in heavy rain. On the second attempt to land on runway 32, the pilots approached too low, broke off the attempt to land and began to make a left turn after flying over the runway. The aircraft collided with the site. 117 passengers and nine crew members were killed in the accident. Three passengers and a flight attendant survived the accident.
Of the Swiss among the victims, 22 were buried in individual graves in the cemetery of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Larnaka . These individual graves were abandoned in September 2009 and the bodies were reburied in a common grave with a plaque.
The airline went bankrupt as a result of the accident in October 1967.
root cause
The Cypriot Aircraft Accident Commission found no technical defects in the machine that could have led to the accident. Why the pilots had evaded to Nicosia and not to Beirut Airport as stated in the flight plan could also no longer be clarified. At the time of the accident, the co-pilot did not have a valid commercial pilot license and the master had exceeded the start of his prescribed rest period by at least 2 hours and 47 minutes.
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Accident report Britannia HB-ITB , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on July 25, 2020.
- ↑ admin.ch: Federal Gazette No. 30, p. 5671, from July 28, 2009 (PDF; 456 kB)
- ↑ tagesanzeiger.ch: Community grave planned for Swiss victims 42 years after the crash , from July 28, 2009.
- ↑ famagusta-gazette.com: Communal grave for crash victims complete , from March 9, 2011.
- ↑ flightglobal.com: FLIGHT International p. 123 of July 25, 1968