Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 202 (YA-BAG) was a scheduled international civilian passenger flight from Lebanon to Afghanistan on 21 November 1959. It took off from Beirut and was destined for Kabul, with a stopover at Mehrabad in Iran and another stopover at Kandahar in Afghanistan. Two minutes after takeoff, the aircraft, a Douglas DC-4, crashed into the side of a hill in Aramoun. The impact caused a fire to break out in the cabin, killing 24 of the flight's 27 total occupants on the scene. The three initial survivors were taken to a hospital in Beirut shortly after the crash, and two of them later succumbed to their injuries.
Investigation
An investigation was launched into the cause of the crash; the report found that a day earlier, after arriving from Frankfurt, West Germany, the flight was delayed for 20 hours due to technical difficulties. Two causes were proposed:
- Navigational error: the pilot did not properly execute a right turn as early as he should have, either because he forgot or was distracted by some unusual occurrence;
- Fire in the No. 1 engine, which induced the pilot to start emergency actions with a resulting reduction in the rate of turn and climb.
References
External links
- AirDisaster.com Accident Database
