1963 Ankara mid-air collision

A mid-air collision occurred on Friday, 1 February 1963, over Ankara, Turkey, when Middle East Airlines Flight 265, a Vickers 754D Viscount completing a flight from Cyprus, came in for landing and collided in the air with a Turkish Air Force Douglas C-47A. After the collision both planes fell directly onto the city below them. All 17 people on board both aircraft died, along with 87 people on the ground.

Accident

According to meteorological data, at 15:00 in the sky over Ankara clouds were present with a lower boundary of 3,000 feet (910 m), visibility was 10-20 kilometers. The flights collided over Ankara at 7,000 feet in good weather.

The C-47 departed Etimesgut at 11:22 GMT; the instrument training flight flew a route southeast of the Gölbaşı radio beacon for an hour and a half, after which the pilots headed back to Etimesgut, following visual flight rules. The flight was intended to last 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Flight 265 radioed Esenboğa at 13:04 GMT to inform air traffic control it would descend from flight level 185 to 105 and would pass Gölbaşı at 13:07. Flight 265 was given permission to descend to 6500 feet at 13:05. Air traffic control ordered Flight 265 to report when they began descent for landing on runway 03. The altimeter setting was 1015.5 mb. Flight 265 reported descending to 6,500 ft and would radio when reaching the Ankara beacon; it was descending from flight level 125 intended to radio when reaching flight level 105. At 13:07 GMT the aircraft reported altitude at flight level 100, and asked it they needed to enter a holding pattern; they had not checked in with Ankara air traffic control but would soon. The flight was 8,000 ft over the Ankara beacon at 13:09 and continued descent to flight level 65. Air traffic control expected to hear from the plane again but never did; the controller made multiple attempts to contact the plane starting at 13:13 but never heard from the plane again.

The Viscount, flying at a heading of 283°, collided into the C-47 flying on a heading of 243°, both at 7,000 feet. It was noted that the Viscount attempted to avoid crashing by pulling up but failed. After the collision, both aircraft fell onto a residential neighborhood, killing 87 people there.