Cyprus 1974: The Final Landing

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2024

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On the 20 July 1974, a young pilot was preparing to land passenger flight CY317 into Nicosia Airport in Cyprus, amidst the threat of an imminent Turkish invasion. From the air, he could see warships approaching the island.

Little did he know that his aircraft would be the final one to land there, it would be destroyed within hours, and the airport remains frozen in time to this day.  

Fifty years later, Captain Adamos Marneros tells Amelia Parker about that fear-filled final flight, on a pivotal day in 1974, and the airport, which he revisited a few years ago.

(Photo: Captain Adamos Marneros outside the derelict Nicosia Airport in 2012. Credit: Andros Efstathios)

Transcript

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0:00.0	He is Brian Cox.
0:02.8	Hello.
0:03.3	And he understands science.
0:05.3	I'm Robin Ince and I don't understand it quite so much.
0:09.0	Could it tell us something about the nature of matter?
0:11.3	Nope.
0:12.0	Okay, good.
0:14.2	Together we'll be joined by a collection of experts and non-expert guests.
0:18.6	What's going on?
0:19.8	Don't worry.
0:21.7	Taking a look at some of the most wonderful things
0:24.4	in the scientific world.
0:25.9	Science with Funny Bits, The Infinite Monkey Cage on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. Hello, welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Amelia Parker.
0:44.0	I'm taking you back 50 years to the early hours of the 20th of July 1974
0:50.0	when a plane is flying towards the island of Cyprus.
0:55.2	The radar scan normally is designed to pick up
0:59.6	thundery clouds.
1:01.6	So this time, being July, very clear weather, very clear skies, we had the radar
1:09.2	scanning the coastline of Turkey and waiting to see the coastline of Cyprus.
1:18.0	I noticed outside Antalya four dots on the radar which I hadn't seen before.
1:25.0	In the cockpit of flight CY 317 sits Adamos Marneros. He's three months into his new role as captain for Cyprus Airways,
1:37.0	the first Cypriot National to have the title. He's gazing out into the dark night with some trepidation.
	...

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