VARIG flight 967

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VARIG flight 967
Boeing 707-385C, Varig Cargo AN0493772.jpg

an identical Boeing 707 from VARIG
Accident summary
Accident type unexplained
place north pacific
date January 30, 1979
Fatalities 6 (presumably)
Aircraft
Aircraft type Boeing 707-323C
operator VARIG
Mark PP-VLU
Departure airport Narita International Airport , Tokyo
Destination airport Los Angeles International Airport
Passengers 0
crew 6th
Lists of aviation accidents

On 30 January 1979, a vanished cargo aircraft of the type Boeing 707 on Varig Flight 967 from Tokyo to Los Angeles from unexplained reason over the northern Pacific . So far, neither debris from the aircraft nor parts of the cargo have been discovered. The six-person crew was initially thought to be missing and was officially declared dead six months later.

Flight route

In addition to its existing passenger traffic, VARIG set up a regular freight service between Galeão International Airport in Rio de Janeiro and Narita International Airport in Tokyo under flight numbers RG966 and RG967 in the 1970s . Boeing 707 aircraft were used on the route. Because the range of these machines did not permit direct flights between Brazil and Japan , the route was routed in both directions via Los Angeles International Airport , where the aircraft were refueled and their crews were changed.

On January 30, 1979, a 13-year-old Boeing 707-323C ( registration : PP-VLU), which VARIG had acquired from American Airlines in March 1974 , was used on flight RG967 . The plane was loaded with around 20 tons of cargo in Tokyo. In addition to Japanese electrical goods - depending on the source - there were 53 or 153 pictures by the artist Manabu Mabe on board, which were to be transported back to Brazil after the end of an art exhibition . The total value of the paintings at the time was $ 1.24 million.

The stage to Los Angeles was assigned four pilots and two flight engineers who were to take turns on the long flight. The responsible captain on board was Gilberto Araujo da Silva, who was able to prove 23,000 flight hours and had become known six years earlier through the emergency landing of VARIG flight 820 .

The aircraft took off from Tokyo at 20:23 local time and then swiveled on a north-easterly course in accordance with the flight plan. Because the flight was carried out with the maximum permitted take-off weight , the Boeing 707 rose only slowly. During the climb , the pilots routinely reported to Japanese air traffic control at 8:45 p.m. (22 minutes after take-off) . The radio message contained no indication of an existing problem.

The aircraft left the air traffic control area about eight minutes later, about 200 kilometers east-northeast of Tokyo, and then disappeared from the civilian radar screens. Another report from the pilots was expected at 21:23 (one hour after take-off), but this did not materialize. The Japanese air traffic controllers subsequently failed to establish contact with the machine.

Theories of whereabouts

Despite an eight-day search, in which a total of 70 Japanese and US ships and aircraft took part, no debris or other traces of the Boeing 707 were found. The whereabouts of the aircraft and the processes on board could not be clarified.

Due to the lack of rubble and the failure to call the emergency services, the investigators put forward the theory that a sudden drop in pressure or a problem with the cabin pressure regulation led to the crew becoming unconscious and the aircraft then continued to fly for a long time. In the event of sudden decompression, which would require damage to the fuselage , the pilots would probably have had sufficient time to put on their oxygen masks and initiate an emergency descent . It therefore seemed more likely that there was a failure or an incorrect setting of the pressure regulation. With increasing flight altitude, the falling air pressure would have had an ever greater impact on the crew's ability to act. The investigators assumed that the pilots became unconscious while climbing shortly after they had made contact with air traffic control at 8:45 p.m. The machine, controlled by the autopilot , continued its flight and probably crashed well outside the search area over the northern Pacific. This favored theory has many parallels to the events on board Helios Airways flight 522 . In the attempt to explain it, however, it remained unclear why the pilots did not react to the acoustic and visual warning messages that would have indicated that the cabin pressure was too low.

Numerous conspiracy theories emerged about the whereabouts of flight RG967 . For example, a kidnapping was assumed in order to steal the pictures on board. Especially among the VARIG workforce there was a rumor that the machine was shot down by Soviet interceptors because the cargo allegedly also contained components of a MiG-25 that had landed in Japan and that were to be secretly transported to the USA .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Gilberto Araújo da Silva archive link ( Memento from July 11, 2013 on WebCite )
  2. ↑ Boeing da Varig desapareceu há 35 anos e jamais foi found . In: UOL Notícias Internacional . March 11, 2014 ( com.br ).
  3. ↑ a b c Mistério voo RG 967 [1]
  4. ↑ Voo Varig 967: o mistério do avião brasileiro que desapareceu para semper [2]
  5. ↑ Aircraft accident data and report in the Aviation Safety Network (English)
  6. ↑ VARIG PP-VLU História Completa do Maior Mistério Aeronáutico Mundial ( Memento from January 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ 707 da Varig foi abatido por caças russos [3]