Jugoslovensky Aerotransport Flight 367

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Coordinates: 50 ° 49 ′ 37 ″  N , 14 ° 20 ′ 47 ″  E

Jugoslovensky Aerotransport Flight 367
JAT DC-9 (7107744587) .jpg

A JAT DC-9

Accident summary
Accident type Bomb attack
place Near Srbská Kamenice
date January 26, 1972
Fatalities 27
Survivors 1 ( Vesna Vulović )
Injured 1
Aircraft
Aircraft type Douglas DC-9-32
operator YAT
Mark YU-AHT
Departure airport Stockholm / Arlanda Airport
1. Stopover Copenhagen Kastrup Airport
2. Stopover Zagreb airport
Destination airport Belgrade airport
Passengers 23
crew 5
Lists of aviation accidents

On January 26, 1972, a Douglas DC-9-32 crashed on Jugoslovenski Aerotransport Flight 367 ( flight number : JU367) of the Yugoslav airline JAT from Stockholm via Copenhagen to Zagreb and Belgrade . Of the 28 inmates, 27 died; the flight attendant Vesna Vulović was the only one who survived. The plane crashed over the village of Srbská Kamenice in Czechoslovakia near the border with the GDR . The course of the accident and the official statement by the Czechoslovak authorities that the plane crashed from a great height are now being questioned by some aviation journalists.

Vesna Vulović stands for surviving the fall from an allegedly 10,160 meter height in the Guinness Book of Records . In 2009, however, the editorial staff expressed their own doubts about the authenticity of the official information.

Course of events

Communication with flight JAT367

The Czechoslovak State Security StB , which was in charge of the accident investigation, claimed after months of investigation that there had been an explosion on board the DC-9 about 40 minutes after take-off from Copenhagen. The official final report of the Czechoslovak civilian investigative commission mentions a bomb which exploded in the front luggage compartment of the aircraft and which tore the aircraft at a cruising altitude of 10,050 meters "within 3 to 20 seconds" after the explosion.

The survival of stewardess Vesna Vulović was explained in previous media reports by the fact that Vulović was in the rear of the machine at the time of the detonation. The rear section, which was torn off as a result of the explosion, fell in a spiral trajectory from around 10 kilometers towards the ground and fell onto a snow-covered slope and was thus slowed down. According to her own statements, however, the young stewardess was sitting in the middle of the machine, which was only occupied by a few passengers - in the row behind the last passenger, as stipulated by the JAT airline regulations. However, in 2009 she said she had no memory of what happened after she went to the plane with the crew.

The Yugoslav authorities accused Croatian extremists of causing the plane crash with a bomb smuggled on board. The only evidence that Croatian terrorists were involved was a call to confess to the Malmö newspaper Kvällsposten .

The FBI files mention an extremist Croatian group called Otpor operating in the United States, which the authorities believe to be connected to the attack on the plane.

doubt

According to a report by the ARD radio in Prague , published by the internet portal tagesschau.de on January 8, 2009, this incident was an invention of the Czechoslovak State Security in cooperation with the Yugoslav secret service. ARD correspondent Peter Hornung-Andersen and ARD aviation journalist Tim van Beveren want to have proven that the plane broke apart at a height of just a few hundred meters, shot down by the Czechoslovak Air Force . According to Tim van Beveren, the descent was an emergency descent and the plane was shot down by the Czechoslovak Air Force because it came over “sensitive” military territory, including a nuclear weapons depot. The statements about the course of the incident are largely based on eyewitness reports to the Czechoslovak State Security, which are part of the investigation files at the time and are now stored in the Czech archives of the security services.

A spokesman for the Guinness Book of Records commented on the new findings on January 9, 2009 and admitted a possible "hoax" to which the Guinness Book of Records succumbed.

A final statement about the cause of the accident was not made. Despite the doubts about the previous description of the incident by the research, according to which it was more likely that the aircraft was shot down by the Luftwaffe, according to Peter Hornung, this point of view remains a speculation based on circumstantial evidence without definitive evidence.

See also

Web links

Commons : Jugoslovenski-Aerotransport-Flug 367  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/highest-fall-survived-without-parachute
  2. a b c d Janusz Biene: Conspiracy uncovered: secret service invented bomb attack. In: the daily newspaper . January 9, 2009, accessed December 20, 2014 .
  3. a b Peter Hornung: Falling from Heaven - the miracle of Vesna Vulović , message on tagesschau.de, January 8, 2009 ( memento of February 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) ( audio version, 3:29 minutes )
  4. Note connection of Croatian extremists in the files of the FBI , TV.com
  5. Interview by the Czech radio with Peter Hornung-Andersen, January 9, 2009
  6. Note: The village of Srbská Kamenice is on the border between the GDR and Czechoslovakia . Research also revealed a possible overlap between the flight routes of Erich Honecker and the First Secretary of the Polish Workers' Party, Edward Gierek . According to Hornung, the last flight altitude of the JAT machine was no more than 900 meters.
  7. 40 Years Ago : The Mysterious Crash of JU-367. AustrianWings, February 12, 2012, accessed on April 22, 2012 : “We never claimed that we knew what really happened. In this respect, this part of the story - that the machine might have been mistakenly shot at - was speculation, but justified. "