Air Rhodesia Flight 827, operated by Vickers Viscount VP-YND 'Umniati' was a scheduled civilian flight between Kariba and the capital,

Salisbury Salisbury ( , ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers River Avon, Hampshire, Avon, River Nadder, Nadder and River Bourne, Wi ...

Rhodesia Rhodesia ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state, unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia served as the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to the ...

(now

Harare Harare ( ), formerly Salisbury, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of , a population of 1,849,600 as of the 2022 Zimbabwe census, 2022 census and an estimated 2,487,209 people in its metrop ...

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

), that was shot down soon after

takeoff Takeoff is the phase of flight in which an aerospace vehicle leaves the ground and becomes airborne. For aircraft traveling vertically, this is known as liftoff. For aircraft that take off horizontally, this usually involves starting with a tr ...

on 12 February 1979 by Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA)

guerrilla Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, Partisan (military), partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include Children in the military, recruite ...

s using a Strela 2 missile. The circumstances were very similar to the shooting down of Air Rhodesia Flight 825 five months earlier. this remained the deadliest aviation incident in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Incident description

The flight's departure from Kariba had been delayed, and so the pilots did not take the time to climb over a lake to get above the ceiling of shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles before heading for Salisbury. ZIPRA had information that the Rhodesian Security Forces Commander General Peter Walls was on board, and they tried to assassinate him. However, he and his wife were on a second (similar) aircraft that took off 15 minutes later, immediately executing maneuvers designed to evade missiles, and landing safely in

. As with the similar incident five months earlier, Flight 827 was damaged by one or more Strela-2 missiles (commonly known at the time as 'SAM-7',

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

reporting name SA-7) and came down in rough terrain in the Vuti African Purchase Area east of Lake Kariba. None of the 59 passengers or crew survived.

Aftermath

Following the second incident, Air Rhodesia added shrouding to the exhaust pipes of their

Viscount A viscount ( , for male) or viscountess (, for female) is a title used in certain European countries for a noble of varying status. The status and any domain held by a viscount is a viscounty. In the case of French viscounts, the title is ...

aircraft to reduce their infrared signature, and painted the aircraft with a low-radiation paint as countermeasures against heat-seeking missiles. On 25 February 1979, the

Rhodesian Air Force The Rhodesian Air Force (RhAF) was an air force based in Salisbury (now Harare) which represented several entities under various names between 1935 and 1980: originally serving the British self-governing colony of Southern Rhodesia, it was th ...

, with covert assistance from the

South African Air Force The South African Air Force (SAAF) is the air warfare branch of South African National Defence Force, with its headquarters in Pretoria. The South African Air Force was established on 1 February 1920. The Air Force saw service in World War II a ...

, launched Operation Vanity, a retaliatory bombing raid against a ZIPRA camp near

Livingstone, Zambia Livingstone is a city in Southern Province, Zambia, Southern Province, Zambia. Lying 10 km (6 mi) to the north of the Zambezi River, it is a tourism, tourist attraction due to its proximity to the Victoria Falls and its road and rail conn ...

Commemoration

A memorial to the victims of the two Rhodesian Viscount incidents, dubbed the Viscount Memorial, was erected on the grounds of the Voortrekker Monument in

Pretoria Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country. Pretoria strad ...

, South Africa, in 2012, and inaugurated on 1 September that year. The names of the dead passengers and crew are engraved on two granite slabs that stand upright, side by side, the pair topped by an emblem symbolising an aircraft.

References

{{Authority control 827 20th-century aircraft shootdown incidents 1979 in Rhodesia Accidents and incidents involving the Vickers Viscount Airliner shootdown incidents Aviation accidents and incidents in 1979 Aviation accidents and incidents in Rhodesia February 1979 in Africa Mass murder in 1979 Rhodesian Bush War Terrorism in Rhodesia Terrorist incidents in Zimbabwe Massacres in Rhodesia