Rain of Death

In midafternoon in Ulus Square, in the heart of Ankara, shoppers, office workers and bystanders jammed the streets. At the railroad station near by, a retired Turkish air force general heard a noise and looked up. The Middle East Airlines jet-prop Viscount was coming into a low-hanging cloud bank on its way toward a landing at Ankara airport. And then, to his horror. the general saw a Turkish air force C-47 Dakota cargo plane lumber into the same cloud from the opposite direction. In a flash of flame, the two rammed headon, dumping flaming wreckage into the crowds in Ulus Square below. Never in the history of flying has there been such death on the ground from an airborne accident.

At least 62 people on the streets were killed, and of another 120 hospitalized, ten were not expected to survive. Eight of the dead lost their lives from huge hunks of hot metal plunging through the roofs of their homes. Four people in a taxi were crushed and killed by falling wreckage. Ulus Square became an inferno of flame and choking smoke as fires touched off by a burst gas main burned out of control for two hours. Fire trucks and ambulances could not get to the scene, slowed to a crawl by the hundreds of screaming, shoving and panicky people who blocked the narrow streets leading to the square.

All 17 people in the two planes--14, including five American passengers, aboard the Viscount and a crew of three on the Dakota--were killed.

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