ČSA Flight 540 was a regularly scheduled international flight from

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

, Czechoslovakia to

Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...

, Iran via

Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...

, Syria and

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

, Iraq. On 20 August 1975, the flight, operated by an

Ilyushin Il-62 The Ilyushin Il-62 (; NATO reporting name: Classic) is a Soviet Union, Soviet long-range Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body jetliner conceived in 1960 by Ilyushin. As a successor to the popular turboprop Ilyushin Il-18, Il-18 and with capacit ...

, crashed 17 km (11 mi) from

Damascus International Airport Damascus International Airport () is the international airport of Damascus, the capital of Syria and the home base of the national flag carrier airline, Syrian Air. Damascus International Airport serves as a primary gateway to Syria and is one ...

while descending at night in clear weather, breaking up and catching fire on impact. 126 of the 128 passengers and crew died in the accident, making it Syria's worst air disaster and the worst air disaster for the airline. Following the crash, the Czechoslovak government sent their condolences to the victims and Damascus.

Aircraft and crew

The aircraft involved was an

with registration OK-DBF. It was produced in 1973 and delivered to the airline in the same year. The aircraft was named ''Brno Trade Fair''. At the time of the accident, the flight captain was Ján Gajdoš (54) with 19 000 flight hours (circa 3000 on Il-62), who led the crew consisting of co-pilot Stanislav Žižka (50) with 15 000 flight hours (circa 2500 on Il-62), navigator František Aulík (43), and flight engineers Karel Hasman (48) and Vladimír Hejduk, who was just off duty. Purser Miroslav Peták was joined by a team of five cabin crew. In total there were 117 passengers and 11 crew on board.

Accident

The plane crashed in an area of high desert approximately 17 km from Damascus Airport. Initially, 3 passengers survived but, one of the survivors, a boy died on the way to the hospital. That brought the death toll to 126 with 2 survivors.

References

Notes

External links

ČSA Flight 540 at PlaneCrashinfo.com
Aviation accidents and incidents in 1975 Czech Airlines accidents and incidents Aviation accidents and incidents in Syria 1975 in Syria Accidents and incidents involving the Ilyushin Il-62 August 1975 in Asia 1975 disasters in Syria Conspiracy theories involving aviation incidents {{aviation-accident-stub