1969 Aswan Ilyushin Il-18 crash 1969 Aswan Ilyushin Il-18 crash On 20 March 1969, a United Arab Airlines Ilyushin Il-18 crashed while attempting to land at Aswan Airport. 100 of the 105 passengers and crew on board were killed in the crash. The flight was a non-scheduled international passenger service from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to Aswan, Egypt. The aircraft was carrying home Muslim worshippers who had won a pilgrimage through a lottery. It was dark in the early morning when the flight attempted to land and blowing sand had reduced visibility to 2–3 kilometers. After two unsuccessful attempts to land, the aircraft was making a
Aswan the summer solstice, a vertical staff cast no shadow. They noted that the sun's disc was reflected in a well at noon. This statement is only approximately correct; at the summer solstice, the shadow was only of the staff, and so could scarcely be discerned, and the northern limb of the Sun's disc would be nearly vertical. However, Eratosthenes used this information together with measurements of the shadow length on the solstice at Alexandria to perform the first known calculation of the circumference of the Earth. The Nile is nearly wide above Aswan. From this frontier town to the northern