Malév Flight 240

1975 aviation incident

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (April 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
  • View a machine-translated version of the French article.
  • Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
  • Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 6,214 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
  • Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
  • You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Vol Malév 240]]; see its history for attribution.
  • You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Vol Malév 240}} to the talk page.
  • For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.
Malév Flight 240
HA-LCI, the aircraft involved in the accident, seen earlier in 1975
Occurrence
Date30 September 1975
SummaryCrashed into sea; cause undetermined
SiteMediterranean Sea
near Beirut International Airport, Beirut, Lebanon
Aircraft
Aircraft typeTupolev Tu-154B-2
OperatorMalév Hungarian Airlines
RegistrationHA-LCI
Flight originBudapest Ferihegy International Airport, Budapest, Hungary
DestinationBeirut International Airport, Beirut, Lebanon
Passengers50
Crew10
Fatalities60
Survivors0

Malév Flight 240 was a regular service from Budapest Ferihegy International Airport, Hungary, to Beirut International Airport, Lebanon. On 30 September 1975, the aircraft operating the route, a Tupolev Tu-154 of Malév Hungarian Airlines, on its final approach for landing, crashed into the Mediterranean Sea just off the coast of Lebanon. All fifty passengers and ten crew on board are thought to have been killed.[1][2] No official statement was ever made on the crash and its cause has never been publicly disclosed.

On 27 September 2007, Hungarian politician György Szilvásy, then Minister of Civil Intelligence Services, wrote a letter[3] to Róbert Répássy, Fidesz party member of the Hungarian Parliament, stating that Hungarian civilian national security services (Információs Hivatal and Nemzetbiztonsági Hivatal) had produced a report on the crash in 2003, and that the report stated that there were no available original (secret service) documents concerning the case. Szilvásy's letter affirmed that the report remains top secret, for reasons not connected to the crash.[3]

Hungarian television station Hír TV has carried a documentary film covering the incident.[4][better source needed] In December 2008, Dutch broadcaster NTR aired a piece on Malév Flight 240 alleging that there is existing photographic documentation of the search and rescue or recovery operation, and that fifteen unidentified bodies were recovered.[5]

According to unidentified witnesses, the plane was shot down, seen by a British military pilot and radar operators on a British radar station in Cyprus.[6][7]

References

  1. ^ "Malév Flight 240 Accident description". Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved 10 June 2018.
  2. ^ "Accident Synopsis 09301975". Airdisaster.com. Archived from the original on 12 February 2009. Retrieved 18 November 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  3. ^ a b "Letter from György Szilvásy to Róbert Répássy" (PDF) (in Hungarian). 27 September 2007.
  4. ^ CINEMART Productions of Hungary; Producer: Ferenc Szohár
  5. ^ "Den Haag Vandaag (The Hague Today)". NTR (NOVA video). 20 December 2008.
  6. ^ Budai, Miklós (8 October 2018). "Still no hope in the most mysterious crash – Aeronautics". Archived from the original on 11 January 2020. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
  7. ^ "Crash of Malév Flight 240". World History Project. Archived from the original on 16 January 2021. Retrieved 13 January 2021.

External links

  • Magazine article in Hetek news magazine (in Hungarian), 12 December 2003
  • News article in Nethírlap online newspaper (in Hungarian), 30 September 2005
  • The Lost Malev – website dedicated to Malév Flight 240

Video recordings

  • Titkok légijárata (Flight of Secrets) – Youtube.com, documentary in Hungarian
  • Az elveszett járat - MA 240 (The lost flight - MA 240) – Youtube.com, documentary in Hungarian
  • v
  • t
  • e
1974   ◄    ►   1976
  • v
  • t
  • e
Aviation accidents and incidents in Lebanon
Portals:
  • Aviation
  • flag Hungary
  • flag Lebanon