Accident

The UM Airlines Yakovlev Yak-42 was a chartered aircraft being used to transport Spanish troops after a four-month peacekeeping tour of Afghanistan. The final destination was Zaragoza Airport but the aircraft attempted to stopover at Trabzon Airport in Turkey, in order to refuel. The aircraft crashed into the side of a mountain near the town of Maçka, 30 miles (48 km) from Trabzon, on its third attempt to land in dense fog. The pilot had stated that he could not see the runway; visibility was less than 10 metres (33 ft).

All crew and passengers were killed in the impact. The troops on board comprised 41 members of the army and 21 members of the air force. The aircraft was also carrying ammunition; explosions after the crash distributed the wreckage over a large area.

Context

The aircraft had been chartered from the Ukrainian UM Airlines by the Spanish defence ministry to return some of the 120 Spanish troops working as International Security Assistance Force peacekeepers in Afghanistan. It was the third crash of a Ukrainian-operated aircraft within six months; an Ilyushin Il-76 had crashed on 9 May, killing around 14 people, and the previous December saw an Antonov An-140 crash in Iran with 44 fatalities.

Aftermath

Spanish defence minister Federico Trillo stated "the meteorological conditions and dense fog caused the drama". NATO Secretary-General George Robertson stated "This is an appalling tragedy, given that these soldiers were serving the interest of peace in a difficult mission in Afghanistan". In 2004, the Spanish Socialist Party government sacked three generals after it was discovered that 22 of the victims' bodies had been misidentified and returned to the wrong families.