Malév Flight 203

Tupolev Tu-134 of Malév Hungarian Airlines
Accident
Date	21 September 1977 (1977-09-21)
Summary	Controlled flight into terrain due to pilot error
Site	6 km SW of Urziceni, about 40 km E of Otopeni Airport, Bucharest (Socialist Republic of Romania) 44°41′48″N 26°32′14″E / 44.69667°N 26.53722°E / 44.69667; 26.53722
Total fatalities	29
Total survivors	24
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Tupolev Tu-134
Operator	HUN Malév
Registration	HA-LBC
Flight origin	TUR Atatürk International Airport, Istanbul (Turkey)
Stopover	Otopeni International Airport, Bucharest (Socialist Republic of Romania)
Destination	HUN Ferihegy International Airport, Budapest (Hungarian People's Republic)
Occupants	53
Passengers	45
Crew	8
Fatalities	29
Survivors	24

Malév Flight 203 was a passenger flight operated by a Tupolev Tu-134 aircraft of the Hungarian airline Malév. On 21 September 1977, the flight crashed approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) east of Otopeni Airport in Bucharest and 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) southwest of Urziceni. The crash resulted in the deaths of 29 people.

The Tu-134 with serial number 8350605 and construction number 06-05 was produced by the Kharkov Aviation Plant in December 1968. The airliner received the registration number HA-LBC and on January 17, 1969, was sold to the Hungarian airline Malév. Notably, the aircraft experienced a hard landing on October 7, 1969, in Amsterdam (Schiphol Airport), resulting in the collapse of the right main landing gear. After repairs, HA-LBC was returned to service.^[1]

The aircraft was performing flight MA-203 from Istanbul to Budapest with an intermediate stop in Bucharest, carrying 8 crew members and 45 passengers. The crew of the airliner was mixed: both pilots, the navigator, the flight engineer, and three flight attendants were from the Government Aviation Squadron, while an additional navigator was from Malév. The captain, reportedly Péter Fejes, was the personal pilot and friend of János Kádár, the leader of the Hungarian People's Republic. The Tu-134 was on final approach when, approximately 40 kilometers from the airport, in the landing configuration (landing gear extended, flaps deployed to 20°, stabilizer set to the landing position) with a slight (3–4°) right bank at an absolute altitude of 55 meters and a speed of about 350 km/h, it collided with trees. After skidding through the trees for 75 meters and disintegrating, the airliner crashed into a steep bank of a ditch, after which it rolled onto a field where it stopped and burned. The debris field extended 800 meters. The crash site was located 32 kilometers east of the runway threshold (according to other sources, slightly less than 40 kilometers) and 6.3 kilometers southwest of Urziceni. In the incident, 21 passengers and all 8 crew members perished. Only 24 passengers survived, all of whom were seated in the rear section: 23 Britons and 1 Turk.^[2]

It is worth noting that there was an interesting moment with the Turkish passenger. At the crash site, only 23 surviving passengers were initially found. However, during the identification of the deceased, it was discovered that one passenger was missing. Documents were rechecked and a request was sent to Istanbul, confirming that this passenger had been on board, but for some inexplicable reason had disappeared. A few days later, the missing Turk was found. It turned out that, uninjured, this passenger had walked out of the intact part of the aircraft, taken his suitcase, and hitchhiked to Bucharest, where he went about his business. After completing his tasks, he went to the Hungarian airline's office and demanded to be flown back to Istanbul.^[3]

By order of Nicolae Ceaușescu, a Romanian-Hungarian-Soviet commission was established, headed by the Romanian Minister of Transport. Ceaușescu himself, who arrived at the crash site by helicopter, later sent Kádár a telegram stating that the accident had occurred due to a failure of Soviet-made equipment, while the crew had fought for the lives of the passengers and the aircraft until the end. Based on this telegram, the commission chairman ordered that the bodies of the deceased crew members be quickly retrieved from under the wreckage and handed over to the Hungarian authorities, even though this contradicted international rules for investigating air accidents. In Budapest, the deceased were given military honors at their funerals, and the fallen military personnel were posthumously promoted. It is worth noting that Soviet representatives (V.G. Kravchenko, L.L. Selyakov, L.S. Gusev, and A.I. Avtomanov) could only arrive at the crash site on September 27, due to bureaucratic delays, six days after the incident and after the victims' funerals had taken place.^[4]

Aircraft HA-LBC was equipped with two flight recorders: a parametric MSRP-12 and a voice recorder manufactured by Sundstrand (produced in the company's UK branch). The Hungarian side insisted on sending the voice recorder to the United States, with a decryption period of 1.5 years. The Romanian side insisted on conducting all the work in Bucharest. The Soviet representatives were concerned only with expediting the work. On September 28, it was decided to decrypt the recorders in Bucharest, and on September 29, in the presence of a Sundstrand representative, the voice recorder was opened. A small section of the tape, 20 millimeters long, was damaged, but the rest was well preserved. Upon the first playback, Soviet representatives concluded that there had been no equipment failure, as the conversation in the cockpit was normal for almost the entire time, with discussions about the new uniform in the airline. The following sequence of events was established based on the voice recordings.^[5]

Flight 203 approached Bucharest from the east, and the crew received instructions from the controller to make a straight-in approach to runway 26, on a heading of 262°. However, Otopeni Airport had ILS beacons only on the western side, and none on the eastern side, so an approach on a 262° heading had to be performed visually. The crew requested to land from the opposite direction, on runway 08 (heading 82°), but the controller insisted on landing on runway 26. The captain argued with the controller for an extended period but eventually agreed. However, during the argument, the point at which to begin descent was missed, and the aircraft approached Bucharest at a higher altitude than required. To expedite the descent, the captain ordered the engines to be throttled back to idle, reducing the forward speed to 340 km/h while increasing the rate of descent to 8–10 m/s. Since the flight was now in the airport's airspace, the navigator stopped monitoring altitude and distance from the airport. The pilots, distracted by their conversation, also did not monitor altitude and descent rate, losing altitude awareness. This was compounded by the fact that the descent was taking place in deepening twilight, making the ground difficult to see. Then, realizing the situation, the captain asked the navigator what the altitude was, to which the navigator replied: 120. At the same time, the alarm sounded as the aircraft descended below the decision height set on the radar altimeter, 120 meters. A few seconds later, the Tu-134 struck the trees.^[6]

According to the conclusion reached by Soviet experts, the aircraft's technical condition was fully operational, and all systems were functioning normally, with the accident resulting from the crew's poor performance. The Romanian side accepted this conclusion, although it contradicted Ceaușescu’s telegram to Kádár, which blamed Soviet equipment and praised the crew as heroes. The Hungarian side refused to accept the Soviet conclusion. Subsequently, Hungarian experts focused on one word from the captain: Inter. According to Hungarian specialists, an unintended deployment of spoilers occurred during the descent, causing the airliner to continue descending below a safe altitude. Soviet specialists responded that the cockpit conversation included a command to prepare the spoilers. The Soviet Union's Ministry of Civil Aviation refused to accept the conclusion that the crash of the Hungarian aircraft was due to crew error. The leaders of the Gromov Flight Research Institute and the Tupolev Design Bureau fully agreed with the Soviet commission's conclusion.^[7]

• Селяков, Леонид Леонидович (1998). Тяжёлые авиационные происшествия. От чего они бывают и человеческие трудности при их расследовании [Severe Aviation Accidents. What Causes Them and Human Difficulties in Their Investigation]. АО АНТК им. А.Н. Туполева.