Secrets of a crashed aeroplane
MúzeumCafé 8.
Even the experienced researchers of the Aviation Museum near the Szolnok Helicopter Base were shocked when, half a century after the catastrophe, they found some physical remnants together with bodies of passengers who had been on an aircraft which crashed on the Great Plain in 1963. The plane belonging to the Romanian carrier TAROM took off from Munich for the Black Sea resort of Constanta on 16 June. On board were 29 West German tourists and a crew of five. Smoke began to escape from the right side of the engine in the vicinity of Budapest and by Bugac the plane was not able to maintain the required altitude. The Hódmezővásárhely fire service tracked the plane as far as the village of Békéssámson. There the exterior of the right wing and then the engine broke off and the plane crashed to the ground from a height of 300 metres at around 11 a.m. There were no survivors. The Romanian and Hungarian authorities conducted an investigation, the wreckage was buried and the area was made even. Some of the related documents are today kept in the Hungarian National Archives, while photographs made during the investigations are in the Police History Museum. Personal objects and the remains of passengers were taken to the Department of Forensic Medicine at Semmelweis University. Lóránt Magyar performing the inquest stated that the majority of passengers were under 40, but no children were on board. A monument to the victims of the catastrophe was erected in Békéssámson in 2008.