Late Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar story on surviving Swissair Athens plane crash in 1979

Following are extracts from the book “The cake that was baked at home” Lakshman Kadirgamar written by his daughter Ajita Kadirgamar and published by Vijitha Yapa Publications.

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A little-known fact is that former Foreign Minister late Lakshman Kadirgamar nearly lost his life in the Swissair Flight 316 plane crash at Athens Ellinikon International Airport, Greece on 7 October 1979.

He and a team of WIPO officials were on their way to China from Geneva to advise the Chinese Government on the establishment of an intellectual property system.

The plane, flying from Geneva to Peking (now Beijing) and carrying 154 passengers and crew on board, skidded off the runway while attempting to land in wet conditions in Athens.

This was finely narrated in ‘The cake that was baked at home’ written by Kadirgamar’s daughter Ajita Kadirgamar published by Vijitha Yapa Publications, which is now sold at Rs. 4,400.

Following are the excerpts of the snapshots of his life written by Ajita.

“Flight 316 touched down on runway 15L at a speed of 146 knots (270 km/h; 168 mph). The aircraft decelerated but overran the runway and came to rest on a public road. The left wing and tail separated and fire broke out. Fifteen out of the 142 passengers on board perished. Among the dead were British, German, and French citizens. Of the passengers on board, 100 were doctors on their way to a medical convention in China.”145

At the time of the crash, I was vacationing with my Spanish boyfriend in a small village called Isla Cristina, in Huelva in the deep south of Spain. One evening while out in a local tapas bar, I casually glanced at the TV screen and news of a plane crash in Athens caught my attention. Something instinctive made me phone my mother back in Geneva and she broke the news to me.

145 Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_316

Needless to say, we immediately undertook the long drive back to Switzerland.