Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision

**Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision** occurred on 12 November 1996 over the village of Charkhi Dadri in Haryana, India. The collision happened between Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747-100B from Delhi to Dhahran (Saudi Arabia) and Kazakhstan Airlines Illyushin II-76 from Chimkent, Kazakhstan to Delhi. All 349 people on both airplanes died in the crash.

## Accident

|rowspan="2" style="width:24%;"|Nationality||colspan=2|Flight 763||colspan="2" style="width:24%;"|Flight 1907||rowspan="2" style="width:12%;"|Total|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
||215|0|0|0|215||||||
||40|0|0|0|40||||||
||0|0|14|0|14||||||
||0|0|13|0|13||||||
||0|0|0|10|10||||||
||5|0|0|0|5||||||
||3|0|0|0|3||||||
||2|0|0|0|2||||||
||1|0|0|0|1||||||
||1|23|0|0|24||||||

SVA763 (Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 763 - Boeing 747-100B) departed from Delhi International Airport to Dhahran at 18:35. KZA1907 (Kazakhstan Airlines Flight 1907 -  Illyushin II-76) was descending to Delhi airport at the same time. Both flights were controlled by VK Dutta. KZA1907 was cleared to descend 15,000 feet altitude, whereas SVA763 was cleared to climb to 14,000feet. After 8 min, KZA1907 reported that they reached 15000 ft altitude, but they were descending to 14,500 ft at that time and were continuing the descent.

### The collision and crash

Not noticing it, soon the KZA1907's tail cut through SVA763's left wing. SVA763 lost control and hit the ground at 1135 kmph. The Boeing 747 remained structurally intact as it went in a steady but fast and uncontrolled descent until it crashed into the field and engulfed by flames, killing everyone both airplanes.

### Crash site

The collision took place about  west of Delhi. The wreckage of the Saudi aircraft crashed near Dhani village, Bhiwani District, Haryana. The wreckage of the Kazakh aircraft hit the ground near Birohar village, Rohtak District, Haryana.

## Investigation

The crash was investigated by the Lahoti Commission, headed by then-Delhi High Court judge Ramesh Chandra Lahoti. The flight data recorders were decoded by Kazakhstan Airlines and Saudi Airlines under the supervision of air crash investigators in Moscow and Farnborough, England, respectively.
The commission determined that the accident had been the fault of the Kazakh Il-76 commander, who had descended from the assigned altitude of  and subsequently  and even lower. The report says that the cause of this serious problem in operating procedure was due to the lack of English language skills on the part of the Kazakh aircraft pilots; they were dependent entirely on their radio operator for communications with the ATC.

Just a few seconds from impact, the Kazakh plane climbed slightly and the two planes collided. This was because the radio operator of Kazakhstan 1907 discovered only then that they were not at 15,000 feet and asked the pilot to climb.The tail of the Kazakh plane clipped the left wing of the Saudi jet, severing both parts from their respective planes.

## Documentaries

The disaster was again the subject of an episode in the documentary series _Mayday (TV series)_ on 2 March 2009 entitled "Sight Unseen", in a wide-screen format with sophisticated computer animations on National Geographic Channel.

## Infobox (aircraft occurrence)

- **occurrence type**: Accident
- **name**: Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 763
Kazakhstan Airlines Flight 1907
- **type**: Mid-air collision led by language barrier and pilot error on Kazakhstan Airlines Flight 1907
- **site**: Charkhi Dadri, Haryana, India
- **total fatalities**: 349
- **total survivors**: 0
- **plane1 image**: Saudia Boeing 747-168B HZ-AIH.jpg
- **plane1 caption**: HZ-AIH, the Saudi Arabian Airlines aircraft involved in the accident, in early 1980s.
- **plane1 type**: Boeing 747-168B
- **plane1 operator**: Saudi Arabian Airlines, Saudia
- **plane1 tailnum**: HZ-AIH
- **plane1 origin**: Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi, India
- **plane1 destination**: Dhahran International Airport, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
- **plane1 passengers**: 289
- **plane1 crew**: 23
- **plane1 fatalities**: 312
- **plane1 survivors**: 0
- **plane2 image**: Kazakhstan Airlines Ilyushin Il-76TD Goetting-1.jpg
- **plane2 caption**: UN-76435, the Kazakhstan Airlines aircraft involved in the accident, in 1994.
- **plane2 type**: Ilyushin Il-76TD
- **plane2 operator**: Kazakhstan Airlines
- **plane2 tailnum**: UN-76435
- **plane2 origin**: Shymkent International Airport, Chimkent Airport, Kazakhstan
- **plane2 destination**: Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi, India
- **plane2 passengers**: 27
- **plane2 crew**: 10
- **plane2 fatalities**: 37
- **plane2 survivors**: 0