Lionair Flight 602

Lionair

Industry	Airline
Headquarters	Sri Lanka
Area served	Sri Lanka

Template:Infobox aircraft occurrence Lionair Flight 602 was an Antonov An-24RV operated by Lionair that was downed over the sea off Sri Lanka’s northwestern shore on 29 September 1998. The flight took off from Jaffna Airport carrying seven crew members and forty-eight passengers. Approximately ten minutes after departure, the aircraft vanished from radar tracking. Early accounts suggested that the plane had been targeted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) with a man-portable surface-to-air missile, a claim which has since been verified. No survivors were found.

Aircraft and crew

Flight 602 was operated using an Antonov AN-24RV leased from the Belarus-based airline Gomelavia. The captain in command was Anatoli Matochko, accompanied by six other crew members, including a stewardess of Sinhalese descent. Among the passengers were forty-eight individuals of Tamil ethnicity, comprising seventeen women and eight children.

Incident

At 13:40 on 29 September 1998, just ten minutes following its departure from Jaffna Airport on a routine journey to Colombo, the aircraft disappeared from radar screens and was presumed lost with all fifty-five people aboard. Before losing contact, the pilot reported a sudden depressurization. In response to this event, the Sri Lanka Civil Aviation Authority imposed an extended suspension on all civilian flights operating between Colombo and Jaffna.

Pre-crash alerts

Approximately one month prior to the event, Lionair—the primary carrier operating flights between Colombo and Jaffna—was issued a cautionary letter from the Tamil Eelam Administrative Service. This communication warned that if the airline persisted in disregarding an earlier notice concerning the transportation of Sri Lanka Armed Forces personnel, it would face an attack following 14 September. Subsequently, the airline ceased operations at its Jaffna office four days before the incident occurred.

Inquiry

In October 2012, the Sri Lankan Navy located debris believed to be remnants of the Antonov aircraft on the seabed near Iranaitivu Island. The location of the crash site was revealed by a former LTTE member who had fled Sri Lanka and was detained upon his return by the Police Terrorist Investigation Department. He admitted to launching a missile at the plane from Iranaitivu Island under instructions from Poththu Amman, a senior LTTE figure.

Nearly fifteen years after the crash, in May 2013, the Navy recovered initial fragments of the wreckage. Despite salvaging between 30% and 40% of the aircraft remains, neither the flight data recorder nor the cockpit voice recorder was retrieved. Only a severely corroded and damaged component was later identified as the auxiliary data recorder. In January 2014, clothing and remains belonging to 22 victims recovered during the salvage operation were exhibited in Jaffna to facilitate identification.

See also

• Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
• Korean Air Lines Flight 007
• Air Lanka Flight 512
• Air Ceylon Avro 748 4R-ACJ bombing