Sabena of the company, he stopped the illegal payments. "Terzake" went on to state that this might explain why the Belgian board members remained quiet when it became apparent Swissair was exploiting Sabena and eventually drove the company into bankruptcy. On December 14, 2007, Georges Jaspis, a former World War II pilot in No. 609 Squadron RAF and the Sabena pilot with the most flying hours (27,000) died. Captain Jaspis was the pilot who inaugurated the Manchester to New York service in October 1953 and who collected the first Sabena Boeing 707 and 747. He had escaped Belgium during the war
Sabena Flight 503 communication was cut off. The aircraft had crashed somewhere in the mountains of Rieti, Italy North-East of Rome and was now missing. Sabena itself got notified about the missing aircraft that same night at 23:15 but would not make an official statement until the morning of the following day. The airplane had crashed somewhere in the mountains of Rieti, Italy North East of Rome which were known for being difficult to access and also lay in a nature reserve where wolves roamed. The Italians immediately started a search and rescue mission to locate the missing aircraft and rescue its occupants.