Malév Flight 240

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Malév Flight 240

HA-LCI, the aircraft involved in the accident, seen earlier in 1975
Occurrence
Date	30 September 1975
Summary	Crashed into sea; cause undetermined
Site	Mediterranean Sea near Beirut International Airport, Beirut, Lebanon
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Tupolev Tu-154B-2
Operator	Malév Hungarian Airlines
Registration	HA-LCI
Flight origin	Budapest Ferihegy International Airport, Budapest, Hungary
Destination	Beirut International Airport, Beirut, Lebanon
Passengers	50
Crew	10
Fatalities	60
Survivors	0

Malév Flight 240 was a regular service from Budapest Ferihegy International Airport, Hungary, to Beirut International Airport, Lebanon. On 30 September 1975, the aircraft operating the route, a Tupolev Tu-154 of Malév Hungarian Airlines, on its final approach for landing, crashed into the Mediterranean Sea just off the coast of Lebanon. All fifty passengers and ten crew on board are thought to have been killed.^[1][2] No official statement was ever made on the crash and its cause has never been publicly disclosed.

Flight Captain was János Pintér (42) with 3,700 flying hours of experience, 1,400 of them on the Tupolev 154. First officer was Károly Kvasz (36), who had 3,300 flying hours, 1,245 of them on the Tu-154. Árpád Mohovits (43) was the third pilot in the cockpit, responsible for navigation. His total flying experience amounted to 1,300 hours. The flight engineer was 39-year-old István Horváth with 1,600 hours of flying experience. In addition, a maintenance engineer named László Majoros accompanied the flight.^[3]

The cabin crew consisted of flight attendants Ágnes Kmeth, Richárd Fried, Mercedesz Szentpály, Miklósné Herczegh and Lászlóné Németh.^[3]

On 27 September 2007, Hungarian politician György Szilvásy, then Minister of Civil Intelligence Services, wrote a letter^[4] to Róbert Répássy, Fidesz party member of the Hungarian Parliament, stating that Hungarian civilian national security services (Információs Hivatal and Constitution Protection Office) had produced a report on the crash in 2003, and that the report stated that there were no available original (secret service) documents concerning the case. Szilvásy's letter affirmed that the report remains top secret, for reasons not connected to the crash.^[4]

Hungarian television station Hír TV has carried a documentary film covering the incident.^{[5][better source needed]} In December 2008, Dutch broadcaster NTR aired a piece on Malév Flight 240 alleging that there is existing photographic documentation of the search and rescue or recovery operation, and that fifteen unidentified bodies were recovered.^[6]

According to unidentified witnesses, the plane was shot down, seen by a British military pilot and radar operators on a British radar station in Cyprus.^[7]

It could have been shot down by the Israeli or Syrian air force. There is evidence to suggest that Israel shot down the plane. In his book "Das Geheimnis von Malev Flug 240 - mysteriöser Absturz vor Beirut", the Austrian aviation expert and journalist Patrick Huber,^[8] citing the Hungarian TV documentary "A Malév 240-es járatának története", writes that an informant named "Jessica", who spoke English with a British accent, said in an interview that the plane was shot down by an Israeli Phantom fighter jet. According to the informant, she was stationed with the Royal Air Force in Cyprus at the time. For the book, the Austrian expert also interviewed Laszlo Nemeth, the husband of one of the stewardesses who died on board. At a personal meeting between the two men in Budapest in February 2024, Nemeth confirmed to Huber the authenticity of the informant "Jessica", saying that he, Nemeth, had also had contact with her. Nemeth has been working on the case for decades and has compiled thousands of pages of documents and conducted countless personal interviews with witnesses who have since died. He was also interviewed several times by Hungarian print and television media on the subject. Huber writes in his book: "According to Lászlo Németh, the PLO delegation was on the final passenger manifest, although it had not even boarded flight MA240. So if Israel could assume that 53 high-ranking Palestinian terrorists were on board the HA-LCI, it could have regarded the aircraft as a legitimate military target, even though this view is not covered by international law, since it was a civilian aircraft.

For Lászlo Németh, there is no doubt that Israel is responsible: 'I have every reason to believe that Israel shot down MA240'." Huber is considered one of Austria's leading aviation experts and is regularly asked by TV stations and print media for his expert opinion on aviation issues.^{[9][10][11][12]}

In an interview with Patrick Huber for his book at the beginning of 2024, Laszlo Nemetz said: "I also had a conversation with the officer who was in charge of passport control for VIP passengers that day. He confirmed to me that he was specially called into duty to handle the Palestinian delegation, but that these people never came. He said that he stayed at the airport until the plane took off. Another Malév employee, who was responsible for the passenger manifest, left the airport with the documents before the plane took off. The Palestinian delegation was therefore on his documents, although it never actually arrived at the airport. Consequently, he also reported to his superiors that the Palestinians were on this flight, because he assumed that they were and did not even know that the men were no-shows. This meant that the 53 Palestinians appeared in all of Malév's official records and I have every reason to believe that the Israeli secret service therefore also assumed that they had actually boarded the flight. At the end of the day, the shooting down was probably simply an intelligence error. Before anyone accuses me of being anti-Semitic, I would like to state that I am not. Many people who have supported me in my years of research were Jews themselves and I owe them a debt of gratitude."^[13]

• Magazine article in Hetek news magazine (in Hungarian), 12 December 2003
• News article in Nethírlap online newspaper (in Hungarian), 30 September 2005
• The Lost Malev – website dedicated to Malév Flight 240

• Titkok légijárata (Flight of Secrets) – Youtube.com, documentary in Hungarian
• Az elveszett járat - MA 240 (The lost flight - MA 240) – Youtube.com, documentary in Hungarian