Plane collision from Zagreb
Coordinates: 45 ° 53 ′ 33 " N , 16 ° 18 ′ 38" E
| Plane collision from Zagreb | |
|---|---|
 Re-enactment of the collision |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Airplane collision in the air |
| place | near Vrbovec , Croatia , Yugoslavia (today Republic of Croatia ) |
| date | September 10, 1976 |
| Fatalities | 176 |
| 1. Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Hawker Siddeley Trident |
| operator |
 British Airways
|
| Mark | G-AWZT |
| Passengers | 54 |
| crew | 9 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| 2. Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | DC-9 |
| operator |
.svg){kind=small} Inex Adria Airways
|
| Mark | YU-AJR |
| Passengers | 108 |
| crew | 5 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
In the plane collision in Zagreb on September 10, 1976, a Hawker Siddeley Trident of British Airways and a Douglas DC-9 of the Yugoslavian Inex Adria Airways collided in the airspace concerned . The reason for this was an overburdened airspace, combined with incorrect actions and technical errors in air traffic control . A total of 176 people were killed, including 107 German nationals.
Several air routes crossed in the airspace over the then non-aligned Yugoslavia . Associated with this was the problem of the air traffic controllers being subjected to heavy loads , especially with the control of the airspace over Zagreb . 32 near-collisions had already been registered there within five years.
Planes
The British Airways aircraft affected was a Hawker Siddeley Trident 3B with the serial number 2320, which was equipped with three Rolls-Royce Spey MK 512-5w turbofan engines and an auxiliary engine for take-off ( Rolls-Royce RB.162-86 Turbojet). It had completed 8,627.44 flight hours and 6952 landings and had a certificate of airworthiness that was valid until May 27, 1978. The affected aircraft of Inex Adria Airways was a Douglas DC-9-32 with the serial number 47649, which was equipped with two JT8D -9A turbofan engines. It had completed 1,345.22 flight hours and 990 landings and had a certificate of airworthiness that was valid until March 5, 1977.
Crews
The cockpit crew of the Trident consisted of the 44-year-old captain Dennis V. Tann, the 29-year-old first officer Brian E. Helm and the 24-year-old second officer Martin J. Flint. The cockpit crew of the DC-9 consisted of the 41-year-old captain Jože Krumpak and the 29-year-old first officer Dušan Ivanuš.
course
The British Trident had started in London in the direction of Istanbul , the DC-9, which carried almost exclusively German tourists, in the Yugoslav holiday resort of Split in the direction of Cologne . For the main actor at the Zagreb District Control Center, the 28-year-old air traffic controller assistant Gradimir Tasić, this September 10th was already the third 12-hour day of the week. As the two planes approached the airspace over Zagreb, the first fatal error occurred in this air traffic control center: One of the controllers asked Tasić, pointing at the overcrowded radar screen , whether he could send the DC-9 to "upper airspace". Tasić, who had just spoken into the microphone about something else, mistakenly related the question to another machine nearby and nodded impatiently. Further communication misunderstandings then occurred because the pilots had to deal with other machines at the same time. The wrong climb of the DC-9 was therefore not recognized even afterwards.
Both planes were now approaching at the same altitude. When Tasić looked at his radar screen, it might have shown him the Trident in the wrong position. From this, he calculated that the two machines would cross at a distance of about 250 meters. For the last 20 seconds before the collision, he spoke to the DC-9 crew only in Serbo-Croatian to stop their climb, so that the crew of the British aircraft received no indication of a collision problem. Then the two planes collided, with the left outer wing of the DC-9 cutting right into the Trident's cockpit , killing the three pilots there on the spot. The Trident suffered an explosive decompression which caused the front area to break away. The tail unit was hit from the front and torn off. Due to the weight of the engines , the Trident hit the stern. The left engine of the DC-9 was damaged by sucking in debris, it also lost 5 meters of the left wing and went into a dive . The voice recorder recorded the last words of Inex copilot D. Ivanuš: “We're done - goodbye, goodbye”. The two machines hit the ground about 26 kilometers northeast of Zagreb. Nobody survived the crash, 176 people died. A neighboring small town was barely spared.
Legal processing
In the trial, the main culprit fell on Tasić, but put into perspective by the radar failure. In a later appeal process , it was found that Tasić, who had been sentenced to prison, could not possibly cope with this situation on his own.
literature
- Gondrom-Verlag (Ed.): Aircraft Disasters , 1996, ISBN 3-8112-1296-6
Web links
-
Final accident report 9/82 (PDF; 10.0 MB) - English ( Archive ( Memento from May 10, 2012 on WebCite ))
- Attachments to Report 9/82 (PDF; 2.2 MB) ( Archive ( Memento from May 10, 2012 on WebCite ))
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Accident report 5/77 (PDF; 5.2 MB) - English ( Archive ( Memento from May 10, 2012 on WebCite ))
- Attachments to Report 5/77 (PDF; 539 kB) ( Archive ( Memento from May 10, 2012 on WebCite ))
- Report on the plane collision in Zagreb at AirDisaster.com - English
- Report on the process in the mirror