On 12 February 1979 , in an attempt to assassinate Walls , ZIPRA shot down Air Rhodesia Flight 827 with a Soviet-made SAM-7 missile . Flight 827 was a regularly scheduled flight from Kariba to Salisbury . The aircraft was a Vickers Viscount known as '' The Umniati '' , and the second civilian Viscount they had shot down . All 55 passengers and 4 crew on board were killed . But Walls and his wife had missed the flight and were aboard a second Viscount which took off 15 minutes later , and which landed unharmed at Salisbury . The Zimbabwe African People 's Union leader Joshua Nkomo appeared on British domestic television laughing about this incident , declaring that Walls was responsible for the passengers ' deaths because he was the " biggest military target " , and this justified the action . The Rhodesian government responded to the attack by air-strikes on ZIPRA bases within the borders of Angola and Zambia
Air Rhodesia Flight 827
Air Rhodesia Flight 827
Peter Walls