Pakistan International Airlines Flight 705 (PK705) was a Boeing 720 airliner that crashed while descending to land at Cairo International Airport on 20 May 1965. Of the 127 passengers and crew on board, all but 6 were killed.[2]
Accident
Wreaths laid at a memorial to the crash on 20 May 2013 by representatives from the Embassy of Pakistan to Egypt and local Pakistani community members
Flight 705 on 20 May 1965 was an inaugural flight between Karachi, Pakistan and London, United Kingdom and was carrying distinguished guests and journalists among the 114 passengers.[3] The aircraft was scheduled to stop at Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, Cairo and then Geneva before completing its journey to London.[3] As the aircraft was on final approach to Cairo International Airport, the pilot reported problems with the flaps; shortly thereafter, the aircraft crashed southeast of the airport and broke up as it exploded into flames.[3] Six of the passengers were thrown clear of the wreckage, but everyone else on board was killed.[3] Among the dead was the Chinese aircraft designer Huang Zhiqian, who was chief designer of the fighter jet Shenyang J-8.[4][5]
On 26 May, local police reported that a transistor radio had been found in the wreckage of the aircraft with jewellery valued at $120,000 hidden in it.[7]
The probable cause of the crash was that "the aircraft did not maintain the adequate height for the circuit and continued to descend until it contacted the ground. The reason for that abnormal continuation of descent is unknown."[8]
^The aircraft was a Boeing 720B model; at the time this aircraft was built, Boeing assigned a unique code for each company that bought one of its aircraft, which was applied as a suffix to the model number at the time the aircraft was built, hence "720-040B".
^ abcd"121 Killed in Desert Air Disaster – Pakistan Plane Crashed on new London Route". News. The Times. No. 56327. London. 20 May 1965. p. 14.
^Tao, Wu (9 April 2012). "大话航空强国梦（十五）：各领风骚数百年" [Talking about the dream of becoming a powerful country in aviation (15): Each has been leading the way for hundreds of years]. Carnoc (in Chinese). Retrieved 12 February 2019.
