Narrative:Ariana Afghan flight 202 arrived at Beirut at 23:30 GMT on November 20 after a flight from Frankfurt. Technical difficulties caused a delay of about 20 hours. The next day the flight took off from runway 18 for a flight to Tehran, Kandahar and Kabul. Some 2 minutes following takeoff the plane crashed in the hills of Aramoun.
|Date:||Saturday 21 November 1959|
|Operator:||Ariana Afghan Airlines|
|C/n / msn:|| 18367|
|First flight:|| 1944|
|Crew:||Fatalities: 5 / Occupants: 5|
|Passengers:||Fatalities: 19 / Occupants: 22|
|Total:||Fatalities: 24 / Occupants: 27 |
|Airplane damage:|| Damaged beyond repair|
|Location:||ca 30 km NE of Beirut International Airport (BEY) ( Lebanon)
|Phase:|| Initial climb (ICL)|
|Nature:||International Scheduled Passenger|
|Departure airport:||Beirut International Airport (BEY/OLBA), Lebanon|
|Destination airport:||Tehran-Mehrabad Airport (THR/OIII), Iran|
PROBABLE CAUSE: "The accident was attributed to a combination of: 1) a navigational error - in that the pilot did not right turn out as early as he should have, either because he forgot or because he was distracted by some unusual occurrence; and 2) a fire indication (or possibly a fire) in no.1 engine which induced the pilot to start fire emergency action with a resulting reduction in the rate of turn and the rate of climb."
Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) - Mountain
» ICAO Accident Digest, Circular 62-AN/57 (213-216)
This map shows the airport of departure and the intended destination of the flight. The line between the airports does not
display the exact flight path.
Distance from Beirut International Airport to Tehran-Mehrabad Airport as the crow flies is 1449 km (906 miles).
This information is not presented as the Flight Safety Foundation or the Aviation Safety Networkĺs opinion as to the cause of the accident. It is preliminary and is based on the facts as they are known at this time.