Air Rhodesia Flight 825 was a scheduled passenger flight that was shot down by the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) on 3 September 1978
A group of ZIPRA guerrillas, armed with a Strela-2 launcher, waited in the bush beneath Flight 825's flightpath, and fired on the
Hunyani about five minutes after it took off, while the aircraft was still in the
climb phase of its flight. The
heat-seeking missile hit the plane's
starboard wing and exploded, causing the inner engine to also explode. A fuel tank and hydraulic lines ruptured, creating a fire that could not be put out. The second starboard engine failed almost immediately, leaving Hood with only his two port engines. Heaving wildly, the
Hunyani began to descend rapidly.
At 17:10 Captain Hood sent a distress call to
air traffic control, informing them that he had lost the two starboard engines and was going to crash. "We're going in," he radioed. Telling his passengers to brace for an
emergency landing, he aimed for an open field of cotton in the Whamira Hills, in the bush to the west of
Karoi, intending to
belly land the craft. The landing was relatively stable until the
Hunyani hit a ditch, cartwheeled and exploded. The remaining fuel tanks ruptured and caught fire, setting the wrecked cabin ablaze
Of the 56 people on board, 38, including Hood and Beaumont, died in the crash. Eighteen survived, albeit with injuries, and climbed out of the wreckage. After briefly settling the others, one of the passengers, Cecil MacLaren, led four others—young newlyweds Robert and Shannon Hargreaves, Sharon Coles, and her four-year-old daughter Tracey—off in the direction of a nearby village in search of water. The other 13 remained close to the wreckage. Meanwhile, nine guerrillas made their way towards the crash site, and reached it at about 17:45. Three of the 13 survivors remaining at the crash site hid on seeing figures approaching: Rhodesian Army reservist Anthony Hill, 39, took cover in the surrounding bush, while businessman Hans Hansen and his wife Diana did the same. This left 10 passengers in full view near the wreckage, including four women and two girls (aged 11 and 4).
The guerrillas, who were armed with
AK-47 rifles, presented themselves to the 10 passengers as friendly, saying they would summon help and bring water. They spoke in English, both to the survivors and among themselves. They told the passengers to congregate around a point a few metres from the wreckage; when the survivors said that some of them were too badly injured to walk, the insurgents told the able-bodied men to carry the others. The passengers were assembled into an area of about 10 square metres (110 sq ft). Standing roughly 15 metres (49 ft) away, the cadres now raised their weapons. "You have taken our land," one of them said. "Please don't shoot us!" one of the passengers cried, just before they were killed by a sustained burst of automatic gunfire. Those that survived the initial bursts were bayoneted (including a mother and her 3-week-old baby).
Having collected water from the nearby village, MacLaren and his companions were almost back at the crash site when they heard the shots. Thinking it was personal ammunition in the luggage exploding in the heat, they continued on their way, and called out to the other passengers, who they thought were still alive. This alerted the insurgents to the presence of more survivors; one of the guerrillas told MacLaren's group to "come here". The insurgents then opened fire on their general location, prompting MacLaren and the others to flee. Hill and the Hansens also ran; they revealed their positions to the fighters in their haste, but successfully hid themselves behind a ridge. After Hill and the others had hidden there for about two hours, they saw the attackers return to the crash site at about 19:45. The guerrillas looted the wrecked cabin and some of the suitcases strewn around the site, filled their arms with passengers' belongings, then left again.
