Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 202

Aircraft, similar to the one involved in this incident, photographed while under operation by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in 1954.
Occurrence
Date	21 November 1959[1]
Summary	Controlled/uncontrolled flight into terrain (CFIT/UFIT)
Site	Aramoun, Lebanon[1]
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Douglas DC-4[1]
Operator	Ariana Afghan Airlines[1]
Registration	YA-BAG[1]
Flight origin	Beirut International Airport, Lebanon
1st stopover	Mehrabad International Airport, Iran
2nd stopover	Kandahar International Airport, Afghanistan
Destination	Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan
Passengers	22
Crew	5
Fatalities	26 (24 initially, 2 in hospital)[1]
Survivors	1[1]

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 and was destined for Kabul, with a stopover at Mehrabad in Iran and another stopover at Kandahar in Afghanistan. Two minutes after takeoff,^[1] 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 on the scene. The three initial survivors were taken to a hospital in Beirut shortly after the crash, and two of them later succumbed to their injuries.

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:^[1]

• 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.