JAT Flight 367
| Occurrence | |
|---|---|
| Date | January 26, 1972 |
| Summary | Bombing |
| Site | Hermsdorf, East Germany |
| Aircraft type | McDonnell-Douglas DC-9 |
| Operator | Jat Airways |
| Registration | YU-AHTdisaster |
| Flight origin | Stockholm-Arlanda Airport |
| Last stopover | Copenhagen Airport |
| Destination | Zagreb Airport |
| Passengers | 22 |
| Crew | 6 |
| Fatalities | 27 |
| Injuries | 1 |
| Survivors | 1 |
JAT Airways Flight 364, registration YU-AHT, was a McDonnell-Douglas DC-9 aircraft which exploded over Hermsdorf, East Germany while en route from Copenhagen to Zagreb and Belgrade on January 26, 1972. The aircraft spun out of control, crashing near the town of Srbská Kamenice in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic). 27 of 28 of those on board were killed in the explosion; one crewmember survived.
There are two versions of the accident: one theory, not sustainable but considered official during communist regime, speculated that Croatian Ustaša terrorists had placed a bomb on the plane.
The other, which was backed up by evidence after the fall of communism and the Warsaw Pact, is that the plane was downed by two SA-12 surface-to-air missiles. The air space that the plane intended to pass through was a restricted area for two hours each day, reserved for military flights. Flight 364 was approaching air space over the Czech Republic, while their route was still in restricted space. Pilots contacted air control and asked for permission to either enter restricted airspace or to be granted an alternative route. Air control asked Czech military headquarters for permission. Headquarters responded that flight 364 was to "wait a few minutes" (circle) before entering the prohibited area. However, air traffic control failed to communicate the answer to pilots, and Flight 364 entered the restricted area. The Czech military responded by firing two SA missiles and downing the aircraft, having received too late the confirmation that it was a civil flight.
The crash site was sealed off for 24 hours, until Yugoslav and Czechoslovakian governments reached an agreement to blame the Ustaše, a Croatian terrorist organization, and planted a briefcase bomb. Yugoslavia was not officially part of the Eastern political block and Warsaw Pact, but it held close ties with USSR and other communist regimes. However, the crash site evidence clearly points to two holes in airplane's body, parts of missiles were found, and debris suggests that the plane was blown up from outside, not from the inside. One missile hit the aircraft behind the cockpit, and another hit near the wing. The tail section was intact, having ripped away from the plane due to the explosion.
The surviving crew member, flight attendant Vesna Vulović, fell from 10,160 meters (33,330 feet) inside the tail section of the aircraft. She was entered into the Guinness Book of Records for the highest fall survived without a parachute. Vulović was temporarily paralyzed from the waist down but lived to tell about it. She continued working for the airline, holding a desk job.
Discovery Channel
This incident has been featured on two Discovery Channel programs, The FBI Files and MythBusters.
The FBI Files
In the episode Radical Resistance, FBI agents in cooperation with local police agencies went up against Otpor, a Croatian extremist terror group. A copy of a newspaper article about the disaster was displayed during the narration.[1]
MythBusters
In the episode Escape Slide Parachute, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman attempted to recreate the circumstances that allowed Vesna Vulović to survive the crash.[2]