TABSO Flight 101

Infobox Airliner incident
name=TABSO Flight 101
Date=24 November 1966
Type=Land crash
Site=Bratislava, Czechoslovakia
Fatalities=82
Injuries=
Aircraft Type= Ilyushin Il-18B
Operator=TABSO
Tail Number=
Passengers=74
Crew=8
Survivors =0

TABSO Flight LZ101 was a scheduled service of the Bulgarian national airline from Sofia, Bulgaria via Budapest, Hungary and Prague, Czechoslovakia (today's Czech Republic) to East Berlin in the German Democratic Republic (today's Germany). The service was operated by the airline's 1960s' flagship equipment, the Ilyushin Il-18B airliner. On Thursday 24 November 1966, the service crashed near Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia then part of Czechoslovakia, with the loss of 82 lives. The crash remains Slovakia's worst air disaster.

The events

On the day of the accident, flight LZ101 was operated by an Il-18B airliner registered LZ-BEN. It had been manufactured in January 1964 (constructor's number 7101) and had been accepted by TABSO on 22 January that year. By the time of the accident, it had not been involved in any incidents and had been maintained in accordance with the manufacturer's schedules.

The crew comprised Commander (captain) Lubomir Todorov Antonov, 41-years-old, with 11,959 total flight hours. He had been among TABSO's most senior Il-18 commanders, having gained command of the type in July 1962, a month or so after its inauguration into service. Antonov had passed a profficiency check two days earlier. He was very familiar with Bratislava Airport, having operated there on 11 prior occasions. Second Pilot (first officer) was Svetoslav Dimitrov Shakadanov, 36, with 5975 flight hours. He had passed a profficiency check the previous day. Navigator Officer was First Class Specialist Navigator Slavi Stefanov Tomakov. Radio-Telegraphy Officer was Nikola Aleksandrov Tasev, 36-years-old, with 3160 flight hours. On-Board Mechanical Officer was Stoyan Todorov Rangelov, 42, with 3602 flight hours. Cabin crew comprised Stewardesses Maria Ivanova, Svetla Georgieva (also known as Svetla Marinov and wife of Ivan Slavkov) and Violina Stoichkova.

The 74 passengers on board Flight LZ101 were of 12 nationalities: Bulgarians, Argentinians, Britons, Chileans, Czechs, Germans, Hondurans, Japanese, Slovaks, Soviets, Swiss and Tunisians. Among them was Bulgarian opera soloist Katya Popova and Bulgaria's ambassador to the German Democratic Republic, General Ivan Buchvarov [Tsakov T, "Катастрофите на "Балкан" – мъртвите и виновните", ["The Crashes of Balkan: the Dead and the Guilty"; in Bulgarian] Meridian Pres-EM, 1994] .

Flight LZ101 departed Budapest at 1146 hours CET. While it was "en-route", weather in Prague deteriorated. Commander Antonov elected to make a diversion to Bratislava Airport (today the M. R. Štefánik Airport, landing there at 1158hrs. By 1530 hrs, the weather in Prague had improved and Antonov decided to prepare to resume the flight. Bratislava Airport meteorologist Jan Popeleny briefed the Commander that medium to strong turbulence was expected above the Little Carpathians hills north-west of Bratislava.

By 1610 the flight had boarded and at 16:20:30 hrs, Antonov was given clearance to taxi to Runway 04 or Runway 31 at his discretion. At the same time, he was cleared to take off, to turn right, to overfly the Nitra radio beacon and to proceed to overhead Brno and on to Prague at 5100m/16700ft. Meanwhile, an Il-14 airliner of Czechoslovak Airlines had taken off from Bratislava. In order to maintain separation between the Il-14 and the Il-18, Antonov was instructed to maintain a height of 300m/1000ft until cleared to do climb to his cruise altitude.

Flight LZ101 took off at 16:28 hrs in almost total darkness. Its departure was observed by air traffic controller Jaroslav Vadovic who reported that it had been normal. Shortly after reporting lift-off, LZ101 was instructed to turn right and contact the Bratislava Approach controller on a frequency of 120.9MHz. The airliner failed to make the transition to Approach control. Some two minutes after departing Bratislava Airport, it crashed 8 kilometres (5 miles) from the airport into the Sakrakopec location in the foothills of the Little Carpathians, near Bratislava's borough of Rača. The area of impact was 288m/945 ft above the elevation of the airport. The aircraft struck the snow-covered ground at a shallow angle, at a very high speed and while full take-off power was delivered by its engines. It felled a large number of trees as it disintegrated over a period of 20 seconds. A fierce fuel fire broke out but burned out rapidly, mostly because fragments and fuel had dispersed over a large area.

The location of the crash was close to built-up areas of Bratislava and very popular with hikers. The accident was observed and heard by many local residents, including an off-duty air traffic controller who immediately telephoned his colleagues at the airport. The approach controllers at the airport had not, however, observed the accident, visually or on radar.

Because of difficult terrain, total darkness and poor weather, rescue services failed to find the scene of the crash for an hour and a half after being summoned. More delays and hesitation were caused by fears that the airliner might have been carrying radioactive isotopes. Within the next three days, the bodies of 74 of the 82 souls on board were recovered and transported to Bratislava for identification. Most victims had died instantly due to multiple injuries received during the impact, and most had severe burn marks sustained "post-mortem". There was speculation, however, that some victims might have survived the impact and fire and died subsequently of hypothermia.

Today, a timber cross marks the site where the aircraft's flightdeck came to a rest and 82 birch trees (one for each victim) mark the general location of the wreckage [cite web | publisher = Pavol Ďuriančík, "SME" | url = http://cestovanie.sme.sk/clanok.asp?cl=3017046 | title = Cross commemorates airplane crash over Rača ("Haváriu lietadla nad Račou pripomína kríž") | date = 24 November 2006 |accessdate = 8 December | accessyear = 2007 |language = Slovak] ..

The investigation

The investigation was conducted by a Czechoslovak commission headed by Chief Inspector of Aeronautics Jan Dvorak. Under international law, he coopted representatives of the country in which the aircraft was registered (the delegation was headed by State Comptrol Commission Chairman Ninko Stefanov) and representatives of the Soviet Ilyushin Design Bureau and of the Ivchenko engine design bureau.

Extreme and escalating tension between the Bulgarian and Czechoslovak authorities and accident investigators was apparent from the outset. A TABSO delegation led by Director General Lazar Beluhov arrived at Bratislava the following day but was denied any access to the accident site or to any air traffic controllers. Early in the investigation, the Bulgarian commission members requested to lead the inquiry under a provision in international law which allowed this. The Czechoslovak authorities refused this request on the grounds of reciprocity (Bulgaria had not signed the clause allowing foreign investigators to inquire into crashes in Bulgaria). The Bulgarian side believed that air traffic controllers in the local Tower and Approach sectors had neglected their duties in allowing a slower aircraft (the Il-14) to depart before a high-performance aircraft (the Il-18), in failing to clear flight LZ101 to a safe height and in failing to monitor its progress on radar. Ultimately, Czechoslovak Minister of Transport Alois Indra assumed overall control of the investigation in order to resolve the conflict between the Bulgarian and Czechoslovak sides. The issues in the conflict touched national prestige and the amount of damages payable to the victims' families: if Czechoslovak air traffic control was found defficient, they would receive 20,000 US dollars each. If the Bulgarian crew was found defficient, they would receive 10,000 leva each.

The investigators documented that the local militia (police), State Security and Bratislava Military Engineer School ranks searched an area of some 350m by 50m (1000ft by 150ft) surrounding the accident site. This involved removing snow cover of between 30 and 50cm (12 to 20in). The fears that the airliner was carrying radioactive isotopes were confirmed on 8 December 1966 when it was stated that it had been Iodine-131 for medical purposes. This isotope is, in fact, entirely harmless to human health and permitted for carriage on commercial flights under international law. The airliner's altimeter was found to indicate the correct height above Bratislava airport.

Ultimately, the commission's report concluded that the causes of the accident had not been determined due to the lack of categorical data and that "the crew had failed to take account of flying conditions in the environs of Bratislava Airport."

In popular culture

The accident was the second one to befall TABSO since 1952 and the airline's first publicly acknowledged one. Largely because of the loss of Katya Popova, it had a massive public resonance in Bulgaria. Its Bulgarian victims' remains were brought back to Sofia ceremonially and were interred in the city's main cemetery while all traffic was brought to a two-minute standstill and air-raid sirens sounded throughout Bulgaria. Poet Pavel Matev wrote the valedictory poem "Ti san li si?" ("Are you but a dream?") to Katya Popova which singer Lili Ivanova turned into a remorseful popular hit ["Ti san li si" performed by Lili Ivanova, http://www.vbox7.com/play:523a030a] .

The Ivan Buchvarov conspiracy theory

One of the accident investigators appointed by the Bulgarian side, Supreme Court investigating magistrate Nedyu Ganchev, committed suicide during the closing stages of the investigation. Shortly beforehand, he had said to friends, "I cannot do what they insist I should do." This led some Bulgarians to believe that the crash may have been staged by Todor Zhivkov in order to eliminate Gen Buchvarov. The topic rapidly became the subject of insistent dark rumours at the time. It was revived after the fall of Zhivkov ["Enemy of Zhivkov dies in Mystery Crash" ("Враг на Живков загива в мистериозна катастрофа") by Boris Temkov (in Bulgarian), http://paper.standartnews.com/archive/2004/12/11/supplement/s4289_8.htm] [Kastelov B, "Тодор Живков - мит и истина" ("Todor Zhivkov: the Myth and the Truth"), Trud, Sofia, 2005 (in Bulgarian)] [http://m1d2g3.blog.bg/viewpost.php?id=201038] . No evidence has been found to confirm or deny this.

References

External links

* [http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19661124-0 TABSO Flight 101 at Aviation Safety Network]