Air Rhodesia Flight 827 [SEP] point in time
Air Rhodesia Flight 827
Air Rhodesia Flight 827, the "Umniati", was a scheduled flight between Kariba and Salisbury that was shot down on 12 February 1979 by Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) guerrillas using a Strela 2 missile soon after take-off. The circumstances were very similar to that of Air Rhodesia Flight 825 five months earlier. To date, it remains the deadliest aviation incident in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
Incident description.
The flight's departure from Kariba had been delayed, so
campaigns continued, however, and indeed extended to attacks on civilian aircraft: ZAPU shot down Air Rhodesia Flight 825 in September 1978, then Air Rhodesia Flight 827 in February 1979. ZANU and ZAPU boycotted the elections held per the Internal Settlement in April 1979, which UN Security Council Resolution 448 called "sham elections ... [held] in utter defiance of the United Nations". In these elections, the UANC won a majority in the new House of Assembly, with 51 of the 72 common roll seats (for which