Shortly after takeoff, the plane caught fire. When the services went inside, everyone was already dead

It was supposed to be another scheduled flight for Saudi Arabian Airlines (now known as Saudia). On August 19, 1980 (43 years ago), a plane of the national carrier of Saudi Arabia took off from Karachi (the largest city in Pakistan) and flew to Jeddah – the second largest city in Saudi Arabia. On the way, however, he had a scheduled stopover in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

The only such plane. He was barely a year old

The first part of the trip went without any problems. Just like a stop in the capital city of Riyadh. Several people disembarked and over 200 boarded, and the plane was refueled and took off without delay for the relatively short 850 km leg of the flight. An experienced Saudi Mohammed Ali al-Khowyter was the captain at the controls, and the first officer was a young, 26-year-old Sami Abdullah M. Hasanain, who received a license to fly this type of aircraft only a dozen or so days earlier.

It was still a relatively modern Lockheed L-1011 (TriStar) machine. Although the L-1011 first flew in 1970, this particular example was almost new. Saudi Arabian Airlines had picked it up just a year earlier, in August 1979. By the way, the Lockheed L-1011 was the first and only passenger jet produced by the Lockheed concern, which to this day specializes in military aircraft.

It caught fire right after takeoff. The pilots returned to the airport

Serious problems arose completely unexpectedly, exactly six minutes and 56 seconds after taking off from Riyadh airport. An alarm was then sounded in the cockpit, informing about the presence of smoke in the aircraft’s cargo compartment. So the pilots sent a Saudi flight engineer, Bradley Curtis from the US, to confirm or rule out the fire. It took the American four minutes to assess the situation and return to the cockpit, during which the plane was still flying towards Jeddah. However, Curtis confirmed that there was indeed smoke coming from the cargo compartment.

When the flight engineer returned to the cockpit, the captain decided to return to Riyadh airport, and a minute later (and 12 minutes after take-off) the first officer informed the air traffic control tower of the problem and asked for the appropriate permission. Another serious problem arose five minutes later when the thrust lever on one of the plane’s three engines jammed (later it was determined that the thrust control cable had been destroyed by fire). This engine continued to run for four minutes, but just before landing the crew decided to turn it off.

The plane landed safely at 21:36 (local time), i.e. 28 minutes after take-off and as many as 21 minutes after the appearance of the message about the fire in the cargo compartment. For the next two and a half minutes, the machine braked and taxied along the runway. It finally stopped only in the taxi zone. Only then did the pilots announce the shutdown of the engines and evacuation.

A locked door and a gruesome discovery

Contrary to the words of the pilots, however, the engines continued to work for more than three minutes after the machine stopped, which prevented the rescue services from providing stairs and getting inside. The flight crew also did not open the evacuation door, which would have resulted in the deployment of ramps for quick evacuation of the aircraft. In addition, six minutes after touchdown, the tower lost contact with the pilots.

The first attempts to open the door failed. The next few minutes were spent looking for a possible entrance to the cabin, but it was not until 22:05 (as many as 29 minutes from the moment of landing) with the help of the fire brigade, the second door on the right side of the fuselage was removed. However, the rescuers found a gruesome sight.

All 287 passengers and 14 crew members on board died. As many as 301 people, most of whom are Saudis, Iranians and Pakistani citizens. The vast majority of them traveled to Mecca for religious purposes. There were also individuals on board from other countries, also from Europe and the USA.

The crash is still shrouded in mystery

This is one of the worst disasters in the history of passenger aviation and one of the few in which over 300 people died (in one plane). Despite the scale of the tragedy, its exact causes remain a mystery. The biggest puzzle is the outbreak of fire itself, which was supposed to appear spontaneously in the cargo area. It was never possible to determine why it happened, and in an almost new plane.

Much more is known about the causes of death of passengers and crew. It was determined that the fire – which started in the rear of the luggage compartment – was so strong that it burned through the floor of the passenger deck and took up the rear part of the cabin. In response, all passengers moved to the front of the plane before landing.

However, there are many indications that the passengers and crew died long before the doors of the plane were opened. Autopsies carried out showed that each of the 301 people on board died of smoke inhalation, not burns, which seems to confirm this hypothesis. Moreover, everyone (including the stewards) was still in their seats, which may indicate that they did not wait for the machine to stop.

Rescuers had to chase the landing plane

In the course of the investigation, a number of irregularities were also revealed, the first of which is attributable to the pilots. After touchdown, the pilots braked gently, using the entire, almost four-kilometer runway and leaving it with the last exit. What’s more, they wasted another precious seconds taxiing instead of emergency braking and starting the evacuation as soon as possible. Two minutes and 40 seconds passed from the moment of touchdown until the plane came to a complete stop, which is far too long.

The pilots’ decision hindered the work of the rescue services, which – when they realized that the plane was decelerating much slower than expected – had to chase the machine to proceed with the evacuation. It was also never proven why the pilots waited three minutes and 15 seconds (from stopping the machine) to turn off the engines. This also delayed an evacuation attempt. Investigators also found that the evacuation itself was chaotic, took too long and was not coordinated with the decisions of the pilots.

Furthermore, it was discovered that the cargo compartment of the C-3 where the fire started was lined with flammable insulating material which quickly caught fire on its own. This only accelerated the spread of the fire through the plane. After the crash, the manufacturer of the machine replaced this material with non-combustible material, and the floor of the passenger compartment was additionally reinforced.