Flight 763 Saudi tells the story of one of the deadliest aviation disasters in history
On November 12, 1996, the sky of India experienced one of the deadliest air accidents in history, when Saudi Airlines Flight 763, shortly after takeoff, collided with a Kazakh Airlines cargo plane.
The Saudi Airlines Flight 763 disaster is the deadliest accident in the history of aviation
On November 12, 1996, at half past six in the evening, communication was lost between the control tower of New Delhi Airport and the pilot of the Kazakh cargo plane "Ilyushin AL-76", which was preparing minutes before that to land. A silence preceded a communications storm that followed, only to realize that the tower's engineers had witnessed the largest air disaster in human history.
It is the accident caused by the Kazakh plane colliding with Saudi Airlines Flight 763, which had just taken off, which led to the death of all 349 passengers on board, in addition to completely destroying them. Later investigations proved that what happened was a human error committed by the Kazakh pilot.
End of flight number 763
Saudi Airlines flight No. 763 was departing from the capital, New Delhi, towards Dhahran Airport, with 289 passengers on board, most of them Indian workers who hoped to earn a living on the territory of the Kingdom, in addition to the 12 Saudi crew members under the command of Captain Khaled Al-Shubaili.
All things were normal on that day, the weather conditions were suitable for a safe flight, and the airport control tower secured the departure path and gave its approval for the start of the flight. But at the same time, the Saudi Boeing 747 was in danger, represented by a Kazakh cargo plane lowering its altitude in order to land.
The pilot of the "Ilyushin AL-76" asked the control tower to secure the landing process, he agreed and asked him to reduce its altitude to 4500 meters, as Flight 763 was supposed to fly under it at 4260 meters, assuring them to inform them if the Saudi plane appeared in front of him .
Eight minutes later, contact with the Kazakh pilot was lost, only to learn that the two planes had collided with each other in the air, according to the investigations that followed the accident. The right wing of the Kazakh plane hit the rear of the Saudi plane, which was enough to split it in half, while the second collapsed to explode on the ground.
None of the passengers on both planes survived the accident. As the number of victims reached 349, mainly of Indian and Nepalese nationalities, in addition to Kazakhs, Russians, Saudis, Pakistanis and one American. US Air Force pilot Timothy Black was the only witness to the moment of impact, saying he saw "a huge cloud glowing with an orange flame".
After the catastrophe
The disaster of Flight 763 caused a great shock in the global aviation community, drawing the attention of a number of film and documentaries makers. It was also followed by a long course of investigations to uncover its circumstances. After the two black boxes were recovered from the rubble, it was found that the Kazakh plane did not comply with the instructions given by the control tower, as it continued to descend to a height of 4200 and below, and its control of the flight altitude was not controlled.
He attributed this to two hypotheses, the first being the weak communicative abilities of the radio operator in the Kazakh plane, as he was not well proficient in the English language. The second hypothesis is that the plane was resisting an air pocket, which made its flight fluctuate between altitude sometimes and lowness at other times.
Investigators' reports also blamed Indira Gandhi International Airport for the accident, as its control towers lacked accurate radars, and therefore take-off and landing calculations were made roughly. It also allocates one lane from which civil aircraft take off and land, while the other lanes are reserved for the Indian Air Force. For this reason, the reports made strict recommendations to the airport management to add other routes for civil aviation in order to avoid the recurrence of a similar accident.
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