Bristol 170 crash near Pakse

The Bristol 170 crash near Pakse was an aviation accident that occurred on Monday 16 August 1954 involving a Bristol 170-21E aircraft in the vicinity of Pakse (Kingdom of Laos), killing 47 people. At the time of the events it was the largest air disaster on the territory of Laos.

Crash

On 1 August 1954 the Indochina War ended. At a conference held shortly before in Geneva, a decision had been taken to partition Indochina, including the temporary division of the territory of Vietnam into two parts — North and South.

The Bristol 170-21E Freighter with registration F-VNAI and serial number 12809 belonged to the Vietnamese airline Air Vietnam. On 16 August it was flying from the delta of the Red River, in the Hanoi area, to Saigon. Its crew consisted of 4 people, and in total there were 51 passengers on board — refugees leaving the future North Vietnam. But during the flight a malfunction occurred in one of the engines, so the crew decided to make an emergency landing. The landing was made on the bank of a tributary of the Mekong River near the town of Pakse, but while it was being carried out the aircraft struck the ground and broke up. 46 passengers and 1 crew member, that is, 47 people in total, were killed in the accident. This is the deadliest crash involving Bristol 170 aircraft. Also, at the time of the events, this air disaster ranked first by number of victims among those that occurred on the territory of Laos, and since 2013 (after the ATR 72 crash near Pakse) second.