page_title: Thessaloniki Airport
section_title: Accidents and incidents
hierarchical_section_title: Thessaloniki Airport / Transport / Accidents and incidents
caption_attribution_description: English: Tupolev Tu-154 HA-LCR next to the fire station at Thessaloniki Airport "Makedonia". See Malév Flight 262 for the story of this aircraft's belly-landing at the airport, on 4 July 2000. It is now used for fire training.
context_page_description: Thessaloniki Airport, officially Thessaloniki Airport "Makedonia" and formerly Mikra Airport, is an international airport serving Thessaloniki, the second-largest city in Greece. It is located 13 km southeast of the city, in Thermi.
  The airport is the third-largest airport in the country after Athens International Airport and Heraklion International Airport. It opened in 1930 and was the second-busiest airport in Greece in terms of flights served and the third-busiest in terms of passengers served in 2016, with over 6 million passengers. It is the main airport of Northern Greece and apart from the city of Thessaloniki it also serves the popular tourist destination of Chalkidiki and the surrounding cities of Central Macedonia. The Athens–Thessaloniki route is the tenth busiest in the EU with 1.8 million passengers. To cope with demand, a second terminal is currently under construction as part of a billion-euro investment by Fraport Greece, the company which operates the airport.
context_section_description: On 12 August 1997, Olympic Airways Flight 171, a Boeing 727-230 registered as SX-CBI inbound from Athens Ellinikon Airport, touched down late and was steered off the runway to avoid overrunning into the sea. None of the 35 passengers and crew were killed, but the aircraft was damaged beyond repair.
  On 17 December 1997, Aerosvit Flight 241, a Yakovlev Yak-42, operating the route from Odessa, Ukraine to Thessaloniki, lost contact with the airport's air traffic control and during the second attempt the aircraft crashed in the Pierian Mountains, near Mount Olympus. A total of 70 people, passengers and crew, 41 of which were Greeks, were killed.
  On 4 July 2000, HA-LCR, a chartered Malév Flight 262 Tupolev Tu-154 landed on its belly. The crew had forgotten to lower the undercarriage and the plane skidded 400 m (1,300 ft) on the runway. Thanks to the plane's robust construction and the engines' high position, the plane was able to become airborne again as the pilots applied full throttle. It circled while the crew lowered the undercarriage and landed safely. There were no injuries. It was considered uneconomical to repair the aircraft. The aircraft still remains on site, although airline markings have been obscured and it has been heavily depleted of re-usable spares.
  On 15 June 2013, an AMC Airlines Boeing 737-800 on behalf of Astra Airlines Greece, registration SU-BPZ performing flight A2-921 from Novosibirsk (Russia) to Thessaloniki (Greece) with 160 passengers, landed on Thessaloniki's runway 16 at about 07:14L (04:14Z) but overran the end of the runway by about 110 meters/360 feet and came to a stop with all gear on soft ground. No injuries occurred, the aircraft received minor if any damage.
caption: HA-LCR next to the airport fire station, in April 2018
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