Habbaniya War Cemetery - Valletta VW832 Crash Victims

On the morning of the 17th April 1957, a Royal Air Force transport Vickers Valetta of 114 Squadron (Serial No: VW832) took off from Aqaba in South Jordan with 3 crew members and 24 military personnel on board (18 from the 10th Hussars, 5 from the REMEs and 1 from the Army Catering Corps). Its destination was RAF Habbaniya. What was later determined as being structural failure due to extreme turbulence, after five minutes airborne, its left wing separated from the fuselage and the aircraft fell from the sky, crashing in a fireball, with everyone on board killed. The twenty-seven bodies were transported to RAF Habbaniya where they were buried in a mass grave side by side in surname alphabetic order, occupying an area previously allocated for seven graves (Grave 1 to Grave 7) in Row B of Plot 5. As can be seen from the photographs of Plot 5, the twenty-seven headstones are erected in a straight line, almost touching. The names are listed on this page of my website, with links to individual headstone photographs.