Two Plane Collisions In Zagreb Kill 176 Passengers, In Today's History 10 September 1976
JAKARTA - On September 10, 1976, a British Airways plane en route from London's Heathrow Airport to Yeşilköy International Airport, Istanbul, collided mid-air with Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 550 en route from Split Kaštela/Resnik Airport, Yugoslavia, to Cologne Airport. Bonn, West Germany. The collision was caused by a procedural error on the part of some Zagreb air traffic control personnel.
A total of 176 people on board both planes were killed instantly and became the third deadliest air crash in history. Citing DBPedia.org, the two planes collided over the city of Vrbovec, near the city of Zagreb, Yugoslavia (now the capital of Croatia). The two planes immediately fell from the sky, sending a rain of debris from the plane.
At least one woman, who was working on the farm, died from the debris. The authorities immediately collected the scattered bodies from various scattered areas. One of the first to arrive at the crash site was Police Garo Tomaevic. He described how terrible it was to witness the results of the air crash.
"I saw bodies lying everywhere," he told reporters. "There was a baby still showing frail signs of life near the (British Airways) plane, but even if the ambulance had arrived before me, it would have been too late to save him," he explained, quoted by TIME.
The death toll from the crash was the highest in aviation history for a two-plane crash, surpassing the list of 162 victims in the crash in Morioka, Japan, when a Japanese fighter plane crashed into an All Nippon Airways Boeing 727. However, the victims of the plane crash in Zugreb were not as many as victims of the Turkish Airlines DC-10 crash that crashed near Paris and killed all 345 people on board.
While reconstructing events, Yugoslav authorities were informed that Inex-Adria had been allowed to climb to an altitude of 35,000 feet before the accident occurred. But the area around Zagreb, precisely the main sky crossing of routes to Turkey, Greece and the Mediterranean, is always busy. Zagreb air traffic controllers were unaware that the British Airways plane was already flying at that altitude. Therefore, the Zagreb air traffic controller was deemed to be very responsible for this fatal error and was immediately arrested by the police.
The four Zagreb air traffic controllers detained were Gradimir Tasic, Mladen Hohberger, Nenad Tetes and Bojan Erjavec. Under Yugoslavia's legal system, a person suspected of committing a crime can be detained and an investigative judge conducts an investigation that can last several months. The judge said he had heard some recorded conversations between ground control and the crew of both planes but still had to check the flight recorder found in the wreckage.
"The footage I have gathered so far does not show who or what was responsible for the accident," the judge said, quoted from the New York Times.
Once the investigation is complete, the public prosecutor examines the findings and decides whether to file charges. After various examinations, Gradimir Tasic was found guilty and sentenced to seven years.
But after more than two years in prison, Tasic was released. There is a petition from the air traffic control group that concludes that Tasic is just a “scapegoat” for the incident. While the UK Air Accident Investigation team (AAIB) continues to conclude that the failure of the air traffic controllers was the root cause of the crash, in particular, the failure of the Zagreb air traffic controllers who were unable to ensure proper vertical separation of the aircraft.
*Read other information about TODAY's HISTORY or read other interesting articles from Putri Ainur Islam.
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