The story of the plane in which 124 passengers died due to a badly extinguished cigarette

Sometimes simple recklessness can cause terrible chaos. the history of the plane Boeing 707 from the Brazilian company Varig is one example. The aircraft, of North American origin, had very advanced technology for the 1970s.

On July 11, 1973, one of these vessels was preparing at Galeão International Airport, Rio de Janeiroobliged to Paris. The 117 passengers who boarded were able to ascertain that their flight was 820, a number that made headlines around the world for the tragedy that was about to happen to them.

The ship’s commander, Gilberto Araujo Da Silva, together with his co-pilot, were preparing for take-off. A total of 134 people were heading to Paris on that flight, counting crew working on the ship. At around 3am, the plane started its last flight.

The beginning of the tragedy

Everything was fine, it was a normal flight. But when the Boeing 707 began flying over the European continent, fire alarms went off in the plane and the desperation of the crew and passengers began.

Captain Da Silva immediately informed his crew of the situation so they could try to locate the source of the fire. In parallel, he issued a Mayday signal to the ground to allow for an emergency landing. They assigned runway number 7 and with the masks placed on the faces of the passengers they began to descend at full speed.

Meanwhile, the stewardesses and the rest of the crew searched unsuccessfully for the origin of the fire and the passenger cabin was filling with thick black smoke which not only compromised the view, but also began to impede the passengers’ normal breathing.

This caused the passengers to pass out, and at the same time, the cockpit of the plane was completely filled with smoke. Which made the situation really bad. With very little visibility, aware that the situation was critical, the pilots decided to land in a clearing.

The impact was violent and made the situation inside the aircraft even more dramatic. From the blow the wings broke and the engines detached. The fuselage was not damaged, but a new fire broke out in the aircraft.

Only 10 people, all crew members, managed to survive.. The rest of the passengers were trapped in the plane, engulfed in flames and smoke, in total 124 people died of suffocation or burned by fire.

What was left of the ship went inside Saulx les Chartreuxa small French town of 5,000 inhabitants where the emergency services immediately went to the rescue of the victims.

Some time later it became known that the cause of the plane fire was a badly extinguished cigarette. A passenger had gone to smoke in the toilet and failed to put it out properly – this oversight has cost more than 100 lives.

What happened after

After the tragedy, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a directive requiring “the installation of signs prohibiting smoking inside restrooms and the disposal of cigarettes in trash cans; establish a procedure for notifying aircraft occupants that smoking is prohibited in the restrooms; install ashtrays in certain places; and check that toilet dump lids are working properly.”

However, the explanation of the badly extinguished cigarette didn’t convince all investigators, so a section was also included in the report claiming that it “was possible” that it was an electrical fault in the aircraft’s toilets.

Captain Araújo da Silva survived this accident, but died years later on January 30, 1979, while piloting Varig Flight 967, another Boeing 707, this time a freighter, bound for Brazil from Tokyo-Narita. The aircraft mysteriously disappeared and no trace of it or his body was ever found.

The plane crash set an important precedent. Since the early 1990s, several countries and airlines have begun banning cigarettes, and in 2000, a total ban on smoking on commercial aircraft was achieved worldwide. Likewise, it is still mandatory for airplanes to have ashtrays.