Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 202
Douglas DC-4 · Controlled flight into terrain
From Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport (BEY) to Kabul International Airport (KBL)
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 24 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 27
- Survivors
- 3
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 3
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
Douglas DC-4
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-4
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- YA-BAG
- Operator
- Ariana Afghan Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- 24
- Route
- From Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport (BEY)To Kabul International Airport (KBL)
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 202 (YA-BAG) was a scheduled international civilian passenger flight from Lebanon to Afghanistan on 21 November 1959. It took off from Beirut at 1:30AM Local Time, and was destined for Kabul, with a stopover at Mehrabad in Iran and another stopover at Kandahar in Afghanistan. Two minutes after takeoff, the aircraft, a Douglas DC-4, crashed into the side of a hill in Aramoun. The impact caused a fire to break out in the cabin, killing 24 of the flight's 27 total occupants.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
An investigation was launched into the cause of the crash; the report found that a day earlier, after arriving from Frankfurt, West Germany, the flight was delayed for 20 hours due to technical difficulties. Two causes were proposed:
Navigational error: the pilot did not properly execute a right turn as early as he should have, either because he forgot or was distracted by some unusual occurrence;
Fire in the No. 1 engine, which induced the pilot to start emergency actions with a resulting reduction in the rate of turn and climb.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 202” (revision 1339308049, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 202
- Revision
- 1339308049 · 2026-02-19 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q4790210
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 202" (page 25943353, revision 1339308049)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.