Total survivors 2 Registration 5A-DIA Crew 10 | Passengers 147 Date 22 December 1992 Total fatalities 157 | |
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Operators Libyan Airlines, Libyan Air Force Similar China General Aviation F, Pakistan International Airlines Fl, China Southern Airlines Fl, 1992 Nigerian Air Force, Martinair Flight 495 | ||
Libyan arab airlines flight 1103 freedom opens up abuses of libya s past
Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 1103 was a Boeing 727 with 10 crew and 147 passengers on board that disintegrated on 22 December 1992.
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Accident
On the day of the accident Flight 1103 took off from Benina International Airport near Benghazi on a domestic flight to Tripoli International Airport. At an altitude of 3,500 ft (1,067 m) during the aircraft's approach to Tripoli airport, the aircraft disintegrated, resulting in the death of all 157 passengers and crew. As of 2013, this accident remains the third-deadliest one involving a Boeing 727, behind All Nippon Airways Flight 58 and Mexicana Flight 940. It is also the deadliest accident to occur in Libya.
Investigation
The official explanation blamed a collision with a Libyan Air Force MiG-23; the pilot and instructor of the MiG were imprisoned.
Aftermath
Twenty years later, after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Abdel Majid Tayari, the instructor in the MiG aircraft, challenged the official version of events, claiming that Flight 1103 was deliberately destroyed, because he saw the "detached tail" falling before his aircraft was knocked out for some unknown reason and forced to eject along with his trainee. Ali Aujali, who served as a Libyan diplomat both under Gaddafi and under the National Transitional Council, claims that Gaddafi ordered the flight to be shot down to demonstrate the negative effects of international sanctions imposed on Libya after the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. According to Aujali, the dictator originally placed a bomb with a timer in the plane, but when this failed to explode, he "ordered the plane to be knocked out of the sky".