International Civil Aviation Organization - Investigations of Air Disasters

Investigations of Air Disasters

Most air accident investigations are carried out by an agency of a country that is associated in some way with the accident; for example, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch conducts accident investigations on behalf of the British Government. ICAO has, however, conducted three investigations involving air disasters, two of which concerned passenger airliners shot down while in international flight over hostile territory.

The first incident occurred on 21 February 1973, during a period of tension led to the Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War in October that year, when Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 was shot down by Israeli F-4 jets over the Sinai Peninsula.

The second incident occurred on 1 September 1983, during a period of heightened Cold War tension, when a Soviet Su-15 interceptor shot down a straying Korean Air Lines Flight 007 near Moneron Island, just west of Sakhalin Island. KAL 007 was carrying 269 people, including 22 children under the age of 12, and a sitting U.S. Congressman Larry McDonald.

The third incident was the crash of UTA Flight 772 a French McDonnell Douglas DC-10 flying from Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo, via N'Djamena in Chad, to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, France. An explosion midflight over the Sahara Desert in Niger caused the aircraft to break up, killing all 156 passengers and 15 crew members, including the U.S. Ambassador to Chad Robert Pugh. Investigators found that a bomb placed in the cargo hold by Chadian rebels backed by Libya was responsible for the explosion; in 1999 a French court convicted six Libyans, including the former Libyan intelligence chief, Abdullah Senussi, in absentia, of planning and implementing the attack.