loss of life. Dan-Air Flight 240: on 26 June 1981 a Hawker Siddeley 748 series 2 (registration G-ASPL) on a regular postal flight from Gatwick to East Midlands Airport crashed at Nailstone in Leicestershire (12 miles from its destination) killing both pilots and the postal assistant on board. The aircraft's right rear door had sprung open in mid-air. It subsequently detached, hit the horizontal tailplane and became stuck on the leading edge. This resulted in a loss of control causing the aircraft to enter a steep dive, during which its wings and tailplane failed as a result of overstressing. Non-fatal incidents In addition to the fatal accidents listed above, Dan-Air suffered a number of non-fatal incidents, most of which occurred during the early years of the airline's existence in the piston-engined era. These usually damaged the aircraft involved beyond repair but did not cause any loss of lives. There were five incidents that made the headlines of the local and/or international mass media: In 1971, one of the airline's Comets operating a charter flight carrying Turkish migrant workers from Berlin Tegel to Istanbul was "escorted" by Bulgarian fighter aircraft into Sofia. The crew flying the aircraft was attempting to take the shortest route to Istanbul when leaving Yugoslav airspace by entering Bulgarian airspace, instead of taking the longer route through Greek airspace. They were not aware of the then communist government of Bulgaria's decision not to let any aircraft enter its airspace whose flight had originated or was going to terminate at a West Berlin airport, without stopping en route at another airport outside West Berlin. The aircraft landed safely at Sofia. It was released along with its crew and passengers when the flight's commander paid the fine the Bulgarian authorities had imposed for violating their country's airspace. In 1973, Somali fighter aircraft forced a Dan-Air Boeing 707 flying through Somali air space en route from London Gatwick to the Seychelles and Mauritius with 83 passengers on board to land at Mogadishu Airport. The aircraft was flying through Somali airspace in violation of the prescribed procedure to apply for permission to do so in advance, as a result of an "administrative oversight" on the airline's part. As a consequence of this violation, the aircraft's captain was taken to court and a fine of £600 was imposed on the airline. In 1974, one of the company's Boeing 727s (a Boeing 727-46,