Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 450

Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 450

The accident aircraft in 1973
Accident
Date	October 30, 1975
Summary	Controlled flight into terrain
Site	Suchdol, Prague, Czechoslovakia 50.1375°N 14.3900°E / 50.1375; 14.3900
Aircraft
Aircraft type	McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32
Operator	Inex-Adria Aviopromet
Call sign	JP 450
Registration	YU-AJO
Flight origin	Tivat Airport
Destination	Prague Ruzyně Airport
Passengers	115
Crew	5
Fatalities	75
Survivors	45

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 onboard descended, under Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC), below defined Minimum Descent Altitude (MDA) during the final approach to Prague Ruzyně Airport RWY 24, entered a gorge above Vltava river, and was unable to out-climb the rising terrain. The crash killed 75 of the 120 occupants.

Accident

Memorial for the victims

The DC-9 was operated by Inex-Adria Aviopromet on a morning flight from Tivat to Prague with mostly Czechoslovakian tourists returning home. Captain Stjepan Miodrag Marović and First Officer Rade Jovan Popov had an uneventful flight until they entered a published landing procedure above PR Non Directional Beacon (NDB) (Fig 2). After executing a wider then published right turn the aircraft set on the final approach to RWY 24 in IMC conditions due to a fog and with horizontal visibility of 1,500 metres (4,900 ft). The crew executed right turn in a way that positioned them to the left of the published glide path and inadvertently descended below defined MDA into a gorge cut by the Vltava river below the airport's elevation. Both the instrument landing system (ILS) for RWY 24 and the Precision Approach Radar (PAR) were reportedly inoperative, which put the crew in a challenging situation during the final approach. Unfortunately, there are no publicly available CVR or FDR recordings, making it impossible to reconstruct cockpit communication, actions of the crew and communication with the ATC, but the crew understood their mistake after a visual contact with the gorge. They brought the engines to a maximum power, trying to climb above the rising ground of the river gorge, but it was too late and the aircraft first hit trees, then a building and crashed 91 metres (300 ft) below the airport's elevation. Time was 9:20 AM. Photo gallery of the accident site can be found in the External Links below. Of the 115 passengers and 5 crew on board, 71 passengers and 4 crew were killed. The accident remains the worst aviation disaster on the Czech Republic soil.

Aircraft

The aircraft operating the flight was a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32, aircraft serial number 47457, manufactured in 1971, and registered YU-AJO.

External links

• 1975: letadlo zmizelo v mlze, pak se ozval náraz. Zemřelo 77 lidí, article in Sedmička (retrieved from archive.org), including pictures from the site
• (in Czech)
• Article in Czech with photographs from the accident
• Accident description for YU-AJO at the Aviation Safety Network
• Accident Photos https://zpravy.aktualne.cz/domaci/foto-unikatni-snimky-uplynulo-45-let-co-prazsky-suchdol-zdev/r~0d10bfd01ab411eb9d74ac1f6b220ee8/v~nahledy/