All 176 people aboard the two aircraft were killed,[2]:8[3]:5–6[4][5] making it the world's deadliest mid-air collision at the time.[6] It remains the deadliest aviation accident in Yugoslav and Croatian history.[7][8] This is also the only British Airways accident to result in fatalities.
Inex-Adria Flight 550 departed Split Airport at 09:48 UTC bound for Cologne Bonn Airport as flight JP550. It carried 108 passengers, mostly German holiday-makers returning home at the end of a holiday on the Dalmatian coast and a crew of five.[3]:2 At the controls sat Captain Jože Krumpak (born 1925), an experienced pilot with 10,157 flying hours, and First Officer Dušan Ivanuš.[7][3]:10–11 Inex-Adria was a charter airline based in the Socialist Republic of Slovenia, the northernmost of the constituent republics making up SFR Yugoslavia.[citation needed]
Both flights proceeded uneventfully until they approached the Zagreb VOR.[citation needed]
Air traffic control
In the mid-1970s, the Zagreb air traffic control region was one of the busiest in Europe despite being seriously undermanned and poorly equipped.[9]:26 The Zagreb VOR was a reporting point for a number of congested airways between northern Europe and southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and beyond.[10] The airspace was divided into three sectors by altitude: the lower sector below 25,000 feet (7,600m), the middle sector from 25,000–31,000 feet (7,600–9,400m), and the upper sector above 31,000 feet (9,400m).[3]:27–29
On entering Yugoslav airspace from Austria, BA476 established radio contact with the Zagreb ACC upper-sector controller Gradimir Tasić at 10:04:12 UTC, informing him that they were at Flight Level330 (33,000ft; 10,050m) and expected to reach the Zagreb VOR at 10:14. The controller responded by instructing them to select transponder code 2312, and to call again on reaching the VOR:[3]:1
10:04:12
BA476
Zagreb, Bealine 476, good morning.
Zagreb Upp
Bealine 476, good morning, go ahead.
10:04:19
BA476
Er, 476, is Klagenfurt at 02, 330 and estimating Zagreb at one four.
10:04:27
Zagreb Upp
Bealine 476, roger, call me passing Zagreb, flight level 330, Squawk Alpha 2312.
10:04:40
BA476
2312 is coming.
This was the last communication with the Trident aircraft before the accident,[3]:1 and the flight was uneventful until the very moment of the collision.[citation needed]
At around the same time, JP550 contacted middle-sector controller Bojan Erjavec asking for a higher flight level; the aircraft was at flight level 260 (approximately 26,000 feet (7,900m)). FL280 (28,000 feet (8,500m)) and FL310 (31,000 feet (9,400m)) were unavailable, so Erjavec informed JP550 of the situation and offered flight level 350 (approximately 35,000 feet (11,000m)), which the pilots accepted. To get clearance for a higher level, it was necessary to obtain the permission of the upper-sector controller. Erjavec waved his hand to get Tasić's attention, but Tasić (who was working the upper sector on his own, as co-worker Mladen Hochberger had gone to search for Nenad Tepeš, Tasić's replacement who was running late) was far too busy to be interrupted. Middle sector controller Gradimir Pelin was then instructed to co-ordinate the climbout for the DC-9 with Tasić.[citation needed]
According to Pelin, he walked to the upper sector console holding JP550's flight progress strip. He asked Tasić if the DC-9 could climb to FL350. Tasić took the strip from Pelin and looked at it, then asked where the aircraft was at the moment. Pelin then pointed to a blip on the screen approaching Kostajnica. Tasić's response was 'yes, it could climb'. Pelin then noticed an aircraft on the screen coming from the direction of Metlika and asked Tasić about it, who said 'wait until they cross'. Pelin referred to the middle-sector screen to make sure that he had identified the DC-9 positively on the upper-sector screen. He then returned to Tasić and they both watched the targets pass each other, at which point Tasić authorised JP550 to climb. Pelin then called out to Erjavec and said 'yes, climb it'. Upon Erjavec receiving the OK from Pelin, he instructed the DC-9 to climb to FL350. That was at 10:07:40.[citation needed]
At 10:12:03, JP550 called the Zagreb middle-sector controller to inform them that the aircraft was out of flight level 310. The last instructions given by Erjavec to JP550 were to call the upper-sector controller on 134.45MHz and to stop squawking the assigned squawk code. By instructing JP550 to squawk Standby, Erjavec simply released a code allocated for the middle sector. The data tag for the DC-9 would now disappear from his screen and the aircraft would become merely a point among many others. If everything about this handover had been normal, the DC-9 would have been given a new code on initial contact with the upper sector controller and would have been positively identified on the upper sector screen with its flight number and altitude readout. But this had not been a normal handover because of the ill-handled co-ordination for the climb. Also, Tasić was busy with other traffic and JP550 did not immediately contact the upper-sector controller. This could have been because the frequency was busy, but the pilots might also have delayed the call for some unknown reason.[citation needed]
By the time JP550 contacted the upper-sector controller at 10:14:04 it had reached the Zagreb VOR and was already climbing through flight level 325 (approximately 32,500 feet (9,900m)). The controller immediately asked for confirmation of the aircraft's level:[3]:4
10:14:04
JP550
Dobar dan ["Good day"] Zagreb, Adria 550.
10:14:07
Zagreb Upp
Adria 550, Zagreb, dobar dan, go ahead.
10:14:10
JP550
325 crossing Zagreb at one four.
10:14:14
Zagreb Upp
What is your present level?
10:14:17
JP550
327.
Realising the imminent danger of collision, Tasić instructed the JP550 to stop climbing. In doing so, he reverted to his native Serbo-Croatian language, contrary to the regulations.[3]:30 This meant that the British Airways plane, even if they overheard this conversation, would have very little chance of understanding their own imminent danger.[citation needed] The controller's last-ditch attempt to avert catastrophe turned what would have been a near miss into the collision he was trying to prevent.[citation needed] For, by the time JP550 had levelled off it was at flight level 330 (approximately 33,000 feet (10,000m)), exactly the same level as BA476:[3]:4
10:14:22
Zagreb Upp
[stammering] ... e... zadržite se na toj visini i javite prolazak Zagreba ["uh... hold your current altitude and report passing Zagreb"].
10:14:27
JP550
Kojoj visini? ["What altitude?"]
10:14:29
Zagreb Upp
Na kojoj ste sada u penjanju jer... e... imate avion pred vama na... [not coherent] 335 sa leva na desno. ["The altitude you are climbing through because... uh... you have an aircraft in front of you at... [not coherent] 335 from left to right."]
10:14:38
JP550
OK, ostajemo točno 330. ["OK, we'll remain precisely at 330."]
The mid-air collision occurred at 10:14:41.[3]:1 Half a minute later, Tasić attempted to call BA476 and instruct it to report passing the next waypoint at Našice, but was answered by a different flight:[citation needed]
10:15:06
Zagreb Upp
Bealine 476, Zagreb... report passing Nasice.
10:15:12
BE778
Beatours 778, were you calling...?
10:15:14
Zagreb Upp
Negative.
Tasić continued to call BA476 and JP550, ignoring calls from other aircraft, but to no avail:[citation needed]
10:15:50
Zagreb Upp
Adria 550, Zagreb...
10:16:00
Zagreb Upp
Adria 550, Zagreb...
10:16:14
Zagreb Upp
Adria 550, Zagreb...
10:16:32
Zagreb Upp
Adria 550, Zagreb...
10:16:42
Zagreb Upp
Adria 550, Zagreb...
10:16:50
Zagreb Upp
Bealine 476, Zagreb...
10:16:58
Zagreb Upp
Bealine 476, Zagreb...
Meanwhile, a LufthansaBoeing 737 was travelling eastbound on UB5 at flight level 290 (approximately 29,000 feet (8,800m)) towards Zagreb, only 15 miles (13nmi; 24km) behind the Trident. The co-pilot saw the collision as a flash of lightning and afterwards, out of a ball of smoke, two aircraft falling towards the ground. The Lufthansa captain, Josef Kröse, reported the sighting to Erjavec, the middle-sector controller.[11]
10:15:40
Capt Kröse R/T
....e Zagreb! It is possible we have a mid-air collision in sight. We have two aircraft going down, well, almost below our position now.
This was spoken in such an agitated voice that Erjavec was unable to understand what was being said.[3]:5[additional citation(s) needed] (Later, on hearing the recording of this call, Captain Kröse had difficulty in understanding his own words.[citation needed]) The Lufthansa captain had to repeat his message several times.[3]:5
10:18:12
Capt Kröse R/T
It is possible that the other aircraft ahead of us had a mid-air collision....er...just overhead Zagreb. We had two aircraft going down with a rapid rate of descent...and there was also smoke coming out.
When the implications of what was being said dawned on Erjavec, he glanced across to the upper-sector controller. At his station sat a stunned Tasić, white-faced with shock. Slowly he lifted the headset from his ears and placed it on the console in front of him.[citation needed]
The two aircraft had collided over the town of Vrbovec, northeast of Zagreb, the last five metres of the DC-9's left wing cutting through the Trident's cockpit section and forward passenger compartment.[3]:2,34
The pilots of the Trident were killed at the moment of collision. The explosive decompression caused the forward part of the Trident's fuselage to disintegrate; the Trident fell, landing on its tail and sliding a short distance before its remains came to rest near the village of Gaj.[3]:5
The DC-9, now without over one-third of its left wing, went into an immediate nose-dive and slammed into the ground right-wing first, near the village of Dvorišće, 25 seconds after the collision.[3]:5 The CVR had reactivated at the moment of collision, having stopped recording 20 minutes earlier.[3]:22
In the end, everyone aboard both flights were killed.[12]
Initial survivors
A police officer who was one of the first to arrive at the scene reported that a baby on the ground was "still giving feeble signs of life near the [British] plane, but even if the ambulances had arrived before me, it would have been too late to save it."[6] Locals reported finding a boy, who was lying on a road near a field, and who displayed signs of life up to 15 minutes after the collision, but he eventually died.[13]
Trial
Memorial to some of the dead
By noon that day, all controllers were in custody for interrogation. Later, all were released except Tasić, who remained in custody until the trial.[citation needed]
The trial opened on 11 April 1977 in Zagreb District Court. All the controllers were indicted under the Penal Code of Yugoslavia, Articles 271-72 as "persons who by endangering railway, sea or air traffic, threaten the lives of persons or property".[citation needed]
Tasić was the only one to be found guilty; he was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.[10] After a petition by air traffic controllers, it was determined that Tasić had been used as a scapegoat, and he was released on 29 November 1978. He had served nearly two years and three months in prison.[citation needed]
In popular culture
A dramatised reconstruction of the events leading up to the accident, starring Antony Sher and entitled Collision Course, was made by Granada Television in 1979.[14][15]
The events of the accident are also documented in a season 1 episode of Aircrash Confidential titled "Collisions", which was first aired on the Discovery Channel in 2011.[16]
Adria Airways d.o.o. was the flag carrier of Slovenia, operating scheduled and charter services to European destinations. The company's head office was at Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport in Zgornji Brnik, Cerklje na Gorenjskem, near Ljubljana. On 30 September 2019, the airline declared bankruptcy and ceased all operations.
British European Airways Flight 548 was a scheduled passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels that crashed near Staines, England, shortly after take-off on 18 June 1972, killing all 118 people on board. The accident became known as the Staines air disaster. As of 2024, it remains the deadliest air accident in the United Kingdom and was the deadliest air accident involving a Hawker Siddeley Trident. One passenger initially survived the impact but died of his injuries soon after.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1976.
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The McDonnell Douglas DC-9 is an American five-abreast, single-aisle aircraft designed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. It was initially produced as the Douglas DC-9 prior to August 1967, after which point the company had merged with McDonnell Aircraft to become McDonnell Douglas. Following the introduction of its first jetliner, the high-capacity DC-8, in 1959, Douglas was interested in producing an aircraft suited to smaller routes. As early as 1958, design studies were conducted; approval for the DC-9, a smaller all-new jetliner, came on April 8, 1963. The DC-9-10 first flew on February 25, 1965, and gained its type certificate on November 23, to enter service with Delta Air Lines on December 8.
Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 553 was a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-15 jet airliner, registration N1063T, operated by Trans World Airlines on March 9, 1967 between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Dayton, Ohio. While descending toward Dayton about 29 miles from the airport, the flight collided in midair with a Beechcraft Baron, a small, general-aviation airplane, near Urbana, Ohio. All 25 aboard the DC-9 and the sole occupant of the Beechcraft were killed.
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Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 1308 was a McDonnell Douglas MD-81 aircraft operating a Yugoslavian charter flight to the French island of Corsica. On 1 December 1981, the flight crashed on Corsica's Mont San-Pietro, killing all 180 people on board. The crash was the deadliest and first major aviation accident involving a McDonnell Douglas MD-80.
The Grand Canyon mid-air collision occurred in the western United States on June 30, 1956, when a United Airlines Douglas DC-7 struck a Trans World Airlines Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation over Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. The first one fell into a canyon and the other one slammed into a rock face. All 128 on board both airplanes perished, making it the first commercial airline incident to exceed one hundred fatalities. The airplanes had departed Los Angeles International Airport minutes apart from each other and headed for Chicago and Kansas City, respectively. The collision took place in uncontrolled airspace, where it was the pilots' responsibility to maintain separation. This highlighted the antiquated state of air traffic control, which became the focus of major aviation reforms.
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The 1990 Wayne County Airport runway collision involved the collision of two Northwest Airlines jetliners at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport on December 3, 1990. Flight 1482, a scheduled Douglas DC-9-14 operating from Detroit to Pittsburgh International Airport, taxied by mistake onto an active runway in dense fog and was hit by a departing Boeing 727 operating as Flight 299 to Memphis International Airport. One member of the crew and seven passengers of the DC-9 were killed.
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Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 450, JP 450, was an international charter flight from Tivat in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to Prague, Czechoslovakia which crashed in the Prague suburb of Suchdol on October 30, 1975, at 09:20 AM. The McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 with 115 passengers and 5 crew on board descended, under Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC), below defined Minimum Descent Altitude (MDA) during the final approach to Prague Ruzyně Airport RWY 25, entered a gorge above Vltava river, and was unable to outclimb the rising terrain. 75 of the 120 occupants died during the crash itself while 4 others died later in hospital. The accident remains the worst aviation disaster on the Czech Republic soil.
The 1973 Nantes mid-air collision occurred when two airliners travelling to London Heathrow airport hit each other over Nantes, France, on 5 March 1973. They were an Iberia McDonnell Douglas DC-9 flying from Palma de Mallorca to London and a Spantax Convair 990 from Madrid to London. All 68 people on board the DC-9 were killed. The CV-990 was able to make a successful emergency landing at Cognac – Châteaubernard Air Base.
This article provides an overview of air transport in Yugoslavia, a country in the Balkans that existed from 1918 until its dissolution in the 1990s.
Palair Macedonian Airlines Flight 301 (1993), which occurred in FYROM (now North Macedonia), was investigated by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
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