Information about the book
ISBN: 978-3-565019-72-4
Format: Paperback, 19 x 12.5 centimetres
128 pages
31 illustrations, some of which have never been published before
Price: EUR 13,99 (plus shipping fee)
The book is also available from the publisher's online shop and can also be ordered from any bookshop by quoting the ISBN.
A German version is also available as Hardcover and Softcover.
Sixty people died when, on the night of 29 to 30 September 1975, a Hungarian Malév aircraft crashed into the sea under mysterious circumstances shortly before landing in Beirut. The accident was never solved, the wreckage and flight recorders were not recovered, and the victims' relatives were silenced by the communist regime in Hungary.
The crash of Malév Flight 240 is still considered a national trauma in Hungary today – yet it is hardly known outside the country. Austrian aviation journalist Patrick Huber sheds light on the tragedy in this book and travelled to the Hungarian capital Budapest for his research, where he also met with the widower of a crew member for an interview.
Hungary in the 1970s is deeply communist, with its citizens' personal freedoms severely restricted. The country is a satellite state of the Soviet Union and obeys orders from Moscow. Its state-owned airline, Malév, not only operates regular passenger and cargo flights, but is also repeatedly used for the illegal transport of military equipment on passenger flights. Apart from the East German airline Interflug, Malév is the only airline still flying to Beirut in the autumn of 1975, even though a bloody civil war has been raging in Lebanon since April, which has also severely affected the airport. For example, the radar is out of order and air traffic controllers are working ‘blind’.
On 29 September 1975, a Malév Tupolev Tu-154A (HA-LCI) with flight number 240 took off from Budapest shortly before midnight, several hours late, bound for Lebanon. It was a life-threatening flight assignment, but in communist Hungary, a pilot or flight attendant could not simply refuse to fly. That would mean the end of their careers and would also have serious consequences. On board are 10 Hungarian crew members and 50 passengers, mainly Arabs but also some Europeans, including two Finnish UN employees. But the three-engine jet will never arrive in Lebanon. Shortly before landing in the early hours of 30 September 1975, Malév 240 crashes into the sea off Beirut after witnesses observe an explosion.
What follows is a state cover-up of enormous proportions by the communist regime in Hungary. The relatives of the victims are denied access to the crash site. No serious attempt is made to search for or recover the wreckage and flight recorders. Around two weeks after the accident, the official Hungarian authorities announce succinctly that the crash remains unexplained and simply close the file. The relatives of the Hungarian victims are pressured not to ask any further questions. Although Lebanese emergency services are able to recover more than half of the victims, Hungary denies this. Not a single body has been found, according to Budapest. A passenger list is never published, and all copies of the cargo manifests are suddenly untraceable. Documents remain under lock and key to this day. And these are just some of the inconsistencies in this case.
So what happened to flight MA240? Was the crash due to pilot error? A bomb explosion? Or was the plane shot down? There is credible evidence that Flight 240 was illegally transporting arms to Lebanon. It has also been proven that a high-ranking delegation from the terrorist organisation PLO was booked on the plane. With his usual meticulousness, aviation safety expert Patrick Huber has researched the case intensively and attempts to unravel the mystery of Flight MA240 in his book.
(red / PR)