El Al Flight 402

El Al Flight 402 was an international passenger flight from London to Tel Aviv via Vienna and Istanbul. On 27 July 1955, the flight, operated by a Lockheed Constellation registered as 4X-AKC, strayed into then-Communist Bulgarian airspace and was attacked by two Bulgarian MiG-15 jet fighters, crashing near Petrich. All 7 crew and 51 passengers on board the airliner were killed. The crash took place amid highly strained relations between the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc and was the deadliest involving the Constellation up to that time.

Flight history

The Constellation originated its scheduled weekly flight from London and departed Vienna's Wien-Schwechat International Airport (VIE) at 02:53, bound to Tel Aviv's Lod Airport (since renamed to Ben Gurion Airport) via Istanbul. As the flight was to approach hostile airspace over the People's Republic of Bulgaria, the airplane was instructed to stay on the Amber 10 airway over friendly Yugoslav and Greek airspace en route to Istanbul.

Incident

The aircraft's crossing of the Western Bulgarian border was registered by an observation post of the Bulgarian military near the town of Tran. Air Defence scrambled two MiG-15 jets with pilots Petrov (pair leader) and Sankiisky by order of Deputy Commander in Chief of Air Defense, General Velitchko Georgiev. The MiGs took off from Dobroslavtsi airport and were responsible for the defense of the capital city of Sofia.

According to pilots Petrov and Sankiisky, Sankiisky first attempted to warn the El Al plane that it was in violation by shooting signal rounds in front of the Constellation's nose. Petrov then repeated the warning. The Constellation initially pretended to follow the instructions and deployed its flaps and landing gear but then sharply retracted them and changed course to Greece in a bid to escape the fighters.

The final shoot-down order was given by Georgiev who said: "If the plane is leaving our territory, disobeying orders, and there is no time left for more warnings, then shoot it down." The airliner was hit by the MiG-15's guns and then descended, breaking apart at 2,000 ft, and crashed in flames on the slopes of Kozhuh hill near the village of Rupite north-east of the town of Petrich, Bulgaria, about 7 km from the Greek border and 25 km from the Yugoslav border killing the 7 crew and 51 passengers.

At first, however, it was speculated that the aircraft was not brought down by fighters but by anti-aircraft guns from the ground. The next day, the Bulgarian government admitted to shooting down the airliner. It expressed regret and arranged an official inquiry but would not allow a six-man investigative team from Israel to take part. This was criticized both by the Israeli and Bulgarian sources within the investigation.