Sabena Flight 503 Sabena Flight 503 The crash of Sabena Flight 503 was an accident involving a Douglas DC-6 of the Belgian airline company Sabena which crashed into Monte Terminillo near Rieti, Italy, 100 km north east of Rome on 13 February 1955, killing all 29 people on board. The Douglas DC-6 involved was built in 1947 with serial number 43063/60 and registration OO-SDB and was used by the Belgian airline company Sabena until its destruction in 1955. Sabena Flight 503 was a Douglas DC-6 which departed from Brussels, Belgium at 17:17 GMT en route to Leopoldstad, Congo with stops at Rome-Ciampino, Italy
Association of European Airlines operated over 8,000 flights a day, serving 530 destinations in 140 countries, with a global turnover of €100 billion. AEA traces its history back to 1952, when the Presidents of Air France, KLM, Sabena and Swissair formed a joint study group, shortly afterwards expanded with the addition of BEA (a forerunner of British Airways) and SAS. In February 1954, the Air Research Bureau was established on a permanent basis, in Brussels. The name was subsequently changed to the European Airlines Research Bureau and - in 1973 - the AEA. Shortly after the ARB was established, the 1954 Strasbourg Conference on