Jeddah International Airport on 26 November 1979 killing all 156 on board the Boeing 707. 19 August 1980: Saudia Flight 163 had a cargo compartment fire shortly after take-off from Riyadh airport. All 287 passengers and 14 crew on board the Lockheed L-1011-200 TriStar, registration HZ-AHK, died after the aircraft made an emergency landing. 11 July 1991: Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 (operated by Nationair) was a chartered passenger flight from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Sokoto, Nigeria which had an in-flight fire and crashed shortly after takeoff from King Abdulaziz International Airport, killing all 247 Hajj pilgrims and 14 crew members on board the DC-8. 7 April 1999 Turkish Airlines Flight 5904 was a flight from Adana, Turkey to Jeddah. The plane was supposed to pick up returning pilgrims, but crashed shortly after takeoff. All 6 occupants on board, who were crew members, were killed. Disease Mingling of visitors from many countries, some of which have poor health care systems still plagued by preventable infectious diseases, can lead to the spread of epidemics. If an outbreak were to occur on the road to Mecca, pilgrims could exacerbate the problem when they returned home and passed their infection on to others. This was more of a problem in the past. One such disease, which has prompted response from the Saudi government, is meningitis as it became a primary concern after an international outbreak following the Hajj in 1987. Due to post-Hajj outbreaks globally of certain types of meningitis in previous years, it is now a visa requirement to be immunised with the ACW135Y vaccine before arrival. Every year, the Saudi government publishes a list of required vaccines for pilgrims, which for 2010 also included yellow fever, polio, and influenza. Middle East respiratory syndrome , the Saudi government asked "elderly and chronically ill Muslims to avoid the Hajj this year" and restricted the numbers of people allowed into the country due to Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Although MERS-CoV was not detected among pilgrims, this does not rule out risk of the disease at Hajj. The disease, though, is only mildly contagious. COVID-19 The spread of the COVID-19 prompted the Saudi Arabian government to discourage people from planning for the Hajj in 2020. On 21 April, the Saudis announced that there would be no public attendance at Taraweeh in Mecca or in Medina. Notable disease outbreaks During the 1821 Hajj, about 20,000