Air Rhodesia Flight 825

Air Rhodesia Flight RH825

Occurrence summary
Date	September 3, 1978
Type	Civilian airliner shoot-down
Site	West of Karoi
Passengers	52
Crew	4
Fatalities	48 (38 in crash followed by the murder of 10 at the crash site)
Survivors	8
Aircraft type	Vickers Viscount
Operator	Air Rhodesia
Tail number	VP-WAS (formerly EP-AHA)
Flight origin	Salisbury, Rhodesia
Last stopover	Kariba, Rhodesia
Destination	Salisbury, Rhodesia

Air Rhodesia Flight 825 was a scheduled flight from Kariba, Rhodesia to Salisbury, Rhodesia that was shot down on September 3, 1978 by ZIPRA guerrillas using a Strela 2 missile ^[1]

Contents 1 Incident 2 Air Rhodesia Flight RH827 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

Incident

The Vickers Viscount aircraft named The Hunyani was operating a scheduled service between Kariba and Salisbury. Five minutes after taking off from Kariba, passengers heard a loud bang from one of the starboard engines. At 17:10 the commander, Captain John Hood, sent a distress call to air traffic control informing them that he had lost both starboard engines, and was going to crash.^[2] The explosion ruptured fuel and pressurized hydraulic lines, causing a fire that could not be extinguished.^[3]

Captain Hood managed to maintain control of the aircraft as it descended, and aimed it for a cotton field in the bush, west of Karoi in the Whamira Hills. The pilots attempted to belly-land the aircraft and told the passengers to brace for impact; seconds later, the fuselage and wings started scraping against the tops of trees. The landing initially looked like it would succeed, but a 4-metre (13 ft) wide donga (ditch caused by soil erosion) that crossed the field caused the plane to pitch over and burst into flame.

Eighteen of the fifty-six passengers survived the crash, with most of these having been seated in the rear. Five of the survivors went to a local village to ask for water. However upon returning, they heard African voices and automatic gunfire - ZIPRA guerrillas killed 10 of the survivors before looting the aircraft.

Sunset was at 17:47 and by 18:33 (80 minutes after the attack) pitch darkness had set in.^[4] This allowed three crash survivors who initially remained at the aircraft to avoid being killed by running away and hiding in the bush but prevented rescue parties from arriving until the following morning.

Joshua Nkomo said in a BBC interview that his guerrillas had shot the aircraft down,^[5] saying that it was being used for military purposes, but denied killing the survivors. Five days after the disaster, the Rhodesian government confirmed that the plane had been shot down by a Strela 2 missile.

Air Rhodesia Flight RH827

Air Rhodesia Flight RH827, Umniati, was another scheduled flight between Kariba and Salisbury that was shot down on 12 February 1979 by ZIPRA guerrillas using a Strela 2 missile in similar circumstances to Air Rhodesia Flight 825. The aircraft turned into a fireball in the sky and crashed into a ravine.^[6] All 59 aboard were killed.

See also

• List of airliner shootdown incidents

References

External links

External images
	Photograph of the aircraft at Airliners.net

← 1977 Aviation accidents and incidents in 1978 (1978) 1979 →     Jan 01  Air India Flight 855 Jan 18  Eastern Airlines Flight 274 Feb 11  Pacific Western Airlines Flight 314 Mar 16  Balkan Bulgarian Tu-134 crash Apr 20  Korean Air Lines Flight 902 May 08  National Airlines Flight 193 Jun 26  Air Canada Flight 189 Aug 30  LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 hijacking Sep 03  Air Rhodesia Flight 825 Sep 25  PSA Flight 182 Sep 30  Finnair Flight 405 Nov 15  Icelandic Airlines Flight LL 001 Dec 21  TWA Flight 541 Dec 23  Alitalia Flight 4128 Dec 28  United Airlines Flight 173 Incidents resulting in at least 50 deaths shown in italics     Deadliest incident shown in bold smallcaps