Saudia Flight 163
The aftermath of the fire aboard Flight 163 | |
| Accident | |
|---|---|
| Date | 19 August 1980 |
| Summary | Failure to evacuate following in-flight fire of unknown origin |
| Site | Riyadh International Airport, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 24°42′42″N 46°43′37″E / 24.71167°N 46.72694°E |
| Aircraft | |
| HZ-AHK, the aircraft involved in the accident, in 1979 | |
| Aircraft type | Lockheed L-1011-200 TriStar |
| Operator | Saudia |
| IATA flight No. | SV163 |
| ICAO flight No. | SVA163 |
| Call sign | SAUDIA 163 |
| Registration | HZ-AHK |
| Flight origin | Quaid-e-Azam Int'l Airport, Karachi, Pakistan |
| Stopover | Riyadh International Airport, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia |
| Destination | Kandara Airport, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia |
| Occupants | 301 |
| Passengers | 287 |
| Crew | 14 |
| Fatalities | 301 |
| Survivors | 0 |
Saudia Flight 163 was a scheduled Saudia passenger flight departing from Quaid-e-Azam Airport in Karachi, Pakistan, bound for Kandara Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, via Riyadh International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which caught fire after takeoff from Riyadh International Airport (now the Riyadh Air Base) on 19 August 1980. Although the Lockheed L-1011-200 TriStar made a successful emergency landing at Riyadh, the flight crew failed to perform an emergency evacuation of the airplane, leading to the deaths of all 287 passengers and 14 crew on board the aircraft from smoke inhalation.
The accident is the deadliest aviation disaster involving a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, and the deadliest to occur in Saudi Arabia. At the time, this was the second-deadliest aircraft accident in the history of aviation involving a single airplane after Turkish Airlines Flight 981 and the third-deadliest overall.