Infographic - Sapthakanya incident. |

Special Thanks : Mr Nalin Balasuriya (Sunday Times) to giving me this Great opportunity

The aircraft took off from Surabaya International airport Indonesia at approximately 1200 hours on 4 December 1974 to proceed to Jeddah, Saudi-Arabia with a programmed stop at Bandaranaike Airport, near Colombo. The aircraft contacted Katunayaka approach control at around 1616 hours indicating that they were 130 miles away and so approach reported the weather conditions and requested the aircraft to change over to Colombo area control for a descent clearance. The aircraft then descended from 35,000 feet and was handed back over to approach control. Approach control then cleared the aircraft down to 2,000 feet and the flight crew was required to report back if they sighted the airfield or if their position was overhead the 'Katunayake Non-Directional Beacon'. This message was acknowledged by the crew but there was no further communication with the aircraft. Eyewitnesses stated that the plane was flying at a level below normal and there was no evidence of a fire on board and all the engines sounded normal with no malfunctions evident. The sound of the aircraft exploding on impact was heard clearly by residents close to the site of the crash. Later it was discovered that the aircraft had crashed into the fifth mountain.

Repeated attempts to make contact with the aircraft from approach control met with no success and in consultation with Colombo area control the distress phase was initiated. Search and rescue operations began subsequently. The country of registry of the aircraft (The Netherlands) and the country of manufacture (USA) were informed. Indonesia was also informed of the accident as many of the passengers were nationals of that country.