Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 202 (YA-BAG) was a scheduled international civilian passenger flight from

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

on 21 November 1959. It took off from

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

and was destined for

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

, with a stopover at Mehrabad in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

and another stopover at

Kandahar Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118. It is the c ...

in Afghanistan. Two minutes after takeoff, the aircraft, a

Douglas DC-4 The Douglas DC-4 is an American four-engined (piston), propeller-driven airliner developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Military versions of the plane, the C-54 and R5D, served during World War II, in the Berlin Airlift and into the 1 ...

, 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 Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

, 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

* Aviation accidents and incidents in 1959 Accidents and incidents involving the Douglas DC-4 Ariana Afghan Airlines accidents and incidents Aviation accidents and incidents in Lebanon 1959 in Lebanon {{aviation-accident-stub