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Varig Flight 820 was a flight of the Brazilian airline Varig that departed from Galeão International Airport in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 11, 1973, for Orly Airport, in Paris, France. The plane, a Boeing 707, registration PP-VJZ, made an emergency landing on onion fields about four kilometers from Orly Airport, due to smoke in the cabin from a fire in a lavatory. The fire caused 123 deaths; there were only 11 survivors (ten crew members and one passenger).

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. (June 2016) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Wikipedia article at [[:ru:Катастрофа Boeing 707 под Парижем]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|ru|Катастрофа Boeing 707 под Парижем}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Varig Flight 820

Deployment of emergency services at the crash site.
Accident
Date	11 July 1973
Summary	In-flight fire, leading to loss of controls and belly landing
Site	near Orly Airport, Orly, Paris, France 48°45′N 2°24′E
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Boeing 707-320C
Operator	Varig
Registration	PP-VJZ
Flight origin	Galeão International Airport, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Stopover	Orly Airport, Paris, France
Destination	Heathrow Airport, London
Occupants	134
Passengers	117
Crew	17
Fatalities	123
Injuries	11
Survivors	11

Aircraft and crew

The Boeing 707-320C registration PP-VJZ, serial number 19841, was manufactured in February 1968 and had flown 21,470 hours. The aircraft was originally meant to be sold to Seaboard World Airlines, but was bought by Varig prior to this taking place. Varig briefly leased it to Seaboard World Airlines but otherwise owned and operated the aircraft for the entirety of its life. The aircraft had seating capacity for 124 passengers and was operating close to full on the fateful flight.^{[citation needed]}

The crew aboard the flight consisted of four flight crew, four relief flight crew, and nine cabin crew. The primary flight crew consisted of Captain Gilberto Araújo da Silva, 49, First Officer Alvio Basso, 46, Flight Engineer Claunor Bello, 38, and Navigator Zilmar Gomes da Cunha, 43. Captain Araújo da Silva was highly experienced and had flown 17,959 hours, of which 4,642 hours were on the 707. First Officer Basso was also very experienced, with 12,613 flying hours, of which 5,055 hours were on the 707. Both Bello and Gomes da Cunha were also highly experienced airmen with 9,655 hours and 14,140 hours in total respectively; between them they had 8,113 hours on the 707.^{[citation needed]}

The relief flight crew consisted of Captain Antonio Fuzimoto, 45, First Officer Ronald Utermoehl, 23, Flight Engineer Carlos Nato Diefenthaler, 38 and Navigator Salvador Ramos Heleno, 45. Relief Captain Fuzimoto was also very experienced, with 17,788 flying hours total, of which 3,221 were on the 707. Relief First Officer Utermoehl was much less experienced, with only 1,540 hours in total, of which only 788 were on the 707. Relief Flight Engineer Diefenthaler and Relief Navigator Heleno were both very experienced airmen, with 16,672 and 15,157 flying hours, respectively, and 17,859 total hours between them on the 707.^{[citation needed]}

The cabin crew consisted of Chief Purser João Egidio Galleti, 33, and attendants Edemar Gonçalves Mascarenas, 31, Carmelino Pires de Oliveira Jr, 31, Sergio Carvalho Balbino, 28, Luiz Edmundo Coelho Brandão, 26, Alain Henri Tersis, 26, Hanelore Danzberg, 34, Andrea Piha, 24 and Elvira Strauss, 24.[1]

Incident

Flight 820's problems began when a fire started in a rear lavatory. Crew members moved to the front of the airplane toward the emergency exit, as many passengers in the rear of the plane inhaled smoke. Prior to the forced landing, many of the passengers had already died of carbon monoxide poisoning and smoke inhalation. The aircraft landed in a field 5 km short of the runway, in a full-flap and gear-down configuration.^{[citation needed]}

Of the 134 passengers and crew aboard the flight, ten crew and one passenger, 21-year-old Ricardo Trajano, survived. Of the crew, Captain Araújo da Silva, First Officer Basso, Flight Engineer Bello, Navigator Gomes da Cunha, Relief Captain Fuzimoto, Chief Purser Galleti and Attendants Pires de Oliveira and Piha were in the cockpit and evacuated from there, whilst Tersis and Brandão escaped out of the forward galley. Trajano was found unconscious with Relief Navigator Heleno, Attendant Balbino and another passenger; Balbino and the passenger died at the scene, whilst Heleno died in a hospital soon after.^{[citation needed]}

A possible cause of the fire was that the lavatory waste bin contents caught fire after a lit cigarette was thrown into it. Consequently, the FAA issued AD 74-08-09 requiring "installation of placards prohibiting smoking in the lavatory and disposal of cigarettes in the lavatory waste receptacles; establishment of a procedure to announce to airplane occupants that smoking is prohibited in the lavatories; installation of ashtrays at certain locations; and repetitive inspections to ensure that lavatory waste receptacle doors operate correctly".[2]

Passengers

Most of the passengers on the aircraft were Brazilian. The only survivors were in the cockpit and the first several rows of seats. Of the 11 survivors, 10 were members of the crew;[3] the sole surviving passenger disobeyed instructions to remain in his seat.

Notable passengers who died included:

• Jörg Bruder, Olympic sailor
• Filinto Müller, President of the Senate of Brazil[3]
• Agostinho dos Santos, singer
• Júlio Delamare, sports journalist

See also

• Air Canada Flight 797
• Saudia Flight 163
• ValuJet Flight 592
• Varig Flight 967, another flight that was captained by Da Silva that disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.

References

Further reading

• "Varig 707 had toilet fire." Flight International. 17 April 1976. p. 995.
• "Caixa-preta: O relato de três desastres aéreos brasileiros" Objetiva Ed. 2000, 328pages ISBN 8539003031

External links

External image
Photo search for Varig Boeing 707 PP-VJZ at Airliners.net

• Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network
• FAA Airworthiness Directive regarding placarding
• (in French) Official report of the inquiry commission of the French secretariat of transportation (Archive)

На других языках

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[de] VARIG-Flug 820

Am 11. Juli 1973 brach ein Feuer an Bord einer Boeing 707 aus, die sich auf dem VARIG-Flug 820 von Rio de Janeiro nach Paris befand. Der Besatzung gelang es, die Maschine nahe dem Flughafen Paris-Orly auf einem Feld notzulanden. Obwohl der Rumpf des Flugzeugs bei der Außenlandung nur gering beschädigt wurde, starben bei dem Unglück 123 Insassen. Mit Ausnahme eines Besatzungsmitglieds erstickten alle Getöteten durch Brandgase.

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- [en] Varig Flight 820

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[fr] Vol Varig 820

Le vol Varig 820 était un vol régulier de l'ancienne compagnie aérienne brésilienne Varig, entre l'aéroport de Galeão (Rio de Janeiro) et celui d'Orly (Paris).

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[it] Volo Varig 820

Il volo Varig 820 era un volo passeggeri di linea internazionale dall'aeroporto di Rio de Janeiro-Galeão-Antônio Carlos Jobim, in Brasile, all'aeroporto di Londra-Heathrow, in Gran Bretagna, con scalo intermedio all'aeroporto di Parigi Orly, in Francia. L'11 luglio 1973, un Boeing 707 operante il volo effettuò un belly landing di emergenza su campi di cipolle a circa quattro chilometri da Orly, a causa del fumo nella cabina dovuto a un incendio sviluppatosi in un gabinetto. Le fiamme causarono 123 morti; solo in 11 sopravvissero (dieci membri dell'equipaggio e un passeggero).[1]

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[ru] Катастрофа Boeing 707 под Парижем

Катастрофа Boeing 707 под Парижем — авиационная катастрофа, произошедшая 11 июля 1973 года в окрестностях Парижа близ аэропорта Париж-Орли с самолётом Boeing 707-345C авиакомпании VARIG, в результате которой погибли 123 человека.

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