What we know about the Boeing 727 crash
Posted by VladimirsGs@reddit | aviation | View on Reddit | 71 comments
Some people have asked for more information about the Boeing 727 crash in Nyala; here is everything I could find.
The accident occurred on October 23, 2025 at 1:41 AM local time.
The aircraft in question is a Boeing 727-200, and it is suspected that it could be the aircraft with the former registration N726CK, which was recently sold to an unknown operator and filmed in Nyala.
Nyala Airport has a 9,850-foot (3,000-meter) long runway, but the accident occurred at approximately 2,950 feet (900 meters) of the runway. The aircraft veered about 400 feet (122 meters) to the left of the runway and burst into flames. The pilots were killed in the accident, and according to some sources, 17 passengers also perished, bringing the death toll to 19. The Sudanese army claimed to have shot down the aircraft as it was landing at Nyala Airport. The satellite images were released by Al Jazeera.
Should you have any further questions, please ask them.
bernfranksimo@reddit
TIL what Nyala is
Dazzling-Produce-471@reddit
I know you’re getting downvoted for this, but I also just learned about Nyala today and most of the people reading this thread just learned about Nyala when they read it.
ian727-200@reddit
N726CK was ferried from Oscoda to N'Djamena (via Gander, Santa Maria, Dakar and Accra) in May 2025. So it didn't last long... what a sad ending. Only a month later, N729CK followed, but flew all the way down to Johannesburg Rand airport, where it is still stored, missing an engine. There was speculation that also N725CK would follow, but it so far did not leave Oscoda.
HungryPigeonn@reddit
N725CK is performing a test flight out of Oscoda as I type this, its first flight in at least two years. Words cannot describe how much I hope that this aircraft hasn’t been sold to the RSF
syfari@reddit
Makes me wonder how much the smugglers make per load, must be a lot if they can afford to expend a plane after a few months.
HungryPigeonn@reddit
that looks nothing like a 727 though..
Bobster031@reddit
So I went down a little rabbit hole. That area is just unsafe for all flights. A few months ago they shot down a plane from the UAE that was carrying Colombian mercenaries, and then a few days ago, also shot down a cargo plane IL-76. The sources are a bit difficult to follow, because they're all independent media, but the IL-76 was operated by the Sudanese, but shot down with chinese SAMs.
3 planes shot down, all died, within a matter of weeks.
VladimirsGs@reddit (OP)
The aircraft transporting Colombian mercenaries was likely a C-130 or its civilian variant, the L-100. All 69 occupants died, including 5 crew members and 64 passengers, 61 of whom were mercenaries. The operator is unknown, but many airlines offer the L-100-30 for charter flights.
Ill-Ladder-3055@reddit
This was Transafrique (Uganda-based) Hercules. You can find the company in Entebbe and they have been doing mercenary flying for years
VladimirsGs@reddit (OP)
That seems credible, just curious you got any sources?
Ill-Ladder-3055@reddit
It was 9U-BBC check it out
VladimirsGs@reddit (OP)
You said Hercules I can only find AN-12 9U-BBC
Ill-Ladder-3055@reddit
Sir it is the AN-12 with that registration that was hit in Nyala
VladimirsGs@reddit (OP)
Are you referring to the August 6 event or the October 23 event?
OptimisticMartian@reddit
The IL-76 was flown by Russians/Belarusians, and was shot down the RSF who got Chinese SAMs from the UAE.
limaechohoteldelta@reddit
Very interested to see what, if any, additional information about this is eventually reported on.
Particularly the mention of 17 potential passengers.
If the aircraft involved actually is N726CK, I've worked on that aircraft. There aren't any passenger seats, it's been a freighter for twenty-five years. There's a few extra crew seats for deadheads, but not enough for 17 people.
Though I would readily believe that an aircraft already operating illegally would have unrestrained passengers onboard.
VladimirsGs@reddit (OP)
They were military personnel who were flying in the cargo hold. At least that's what I suspect.
VladimirsGs@reddit (OP)
The aircraft was allegedly scrapped in Chad for spare parts, however videos prove that this never happened and that the aircraft likely transported weapons and personnel between N'Djamena, Nyala and Juba.
hey_hey_hey_nike@reddit
There used to be a very lively tertiary, quartenary and quintenary market of 727s in Africa. Also, rail number swaps. Etc.
satisdumb@reddit
Quintenary market = drug and gun trafficking
Kdj2j2@reddit
Wasn’t that a horse hauler?
duckus3331@reddit
N725CK was the KII 727 that flew the Tex Sutton contract, but by 2021 hadn't flown any horses for a year or two per the people I worked with in KOSC. It had been operating as a regular cargo bird out of KCVG and KYIP moving cargo that tied down on the cookie sheets rather than cans.
In late 2021/early 2022 it got repainted all white so it wouldn't be branded for Tex Sutton, but also wasn't branded for KII.
AG-cat348@reddit
You still work at OSC? Lived in Harrisville for 7 yrs growing up. Always wondered what working at the maintenance shop there was like. Been to that little museum and did some flight training. Still buy tools from ATS occasionally.
duckus3331@reddit
Left in March '22. It was alright. One plane per hangar, usually down for a month or 2, tear apart, inspect, put back together. Just wasn't what I was looking to do for my whole career, good first job though. Learned a lot.
AG-cat348@reddit
I could see it getting kinda monotonous. Thanks for your reply. All the best to you!
wachis1969@reddit
The seat tracks are still installed, seats can easily be installed.
limaechohoteldelta@reddit
I may be wrong, but I don't believe that the seat tracks were left in place during the installation of the maindeck rollers. This is the maindeck of N726CK in 2022: (alt link: https://imgur.com/a/T59Odrw)
duckus3331@reddit
Did heavy checks on the KII 727s. Those rollers and claws mount to the seat tracks.
limaechohoteldelta@reddit
TIL! That's pretty neat, I guess the conversion process isn't as intense as I thought it was.
flightwatcher45@reddit
They also make pallets they have seats installed to them.
duckus3331@reddit
Yeah. On most of those checks we had to pull all of them up to open the floor boards and inspect the seat tracks. A lot of people forget that the floorboards and seat tracks are important structural components like the frames and stringers.
LostPilot517@reddit
I mean seats bolted to a few cookie sheets, and lock them down. It is a freighter in a no regulation land, probably didn't even have overhead bins or PSUs.
toybuilder@reddit
Throwback: When UPS Flew People Rather Than Packages https://share.google/YzW9GxKIHfFPlNo0p
not likely but it was also possible to have pallets designed to add passenger seating...
Ill-Ladder-3055@reddit
These so-called internet experts miss that fact that it was an AN-12 which was hit and burned at Nyala on that day.
Learn your airplanes and then become a conspiracy theorist !
VladimirsGs@reddit (OP)
What is your source? Every source says it was a 727
throwawayexplorer17@reddit
Why they gotta shoot down my former planes
Sensitive-Newt-6759@reddit
I'm naive so apologies but why were the Sudanese want to shoot it down?
M1NNESNOWTA@reddit
There are two factions vying for control of the Sudanese government and they are in civil war. Absolutely full of your favorite wartime games such as random slaughter of civilians, mass rape, and genocide.
kittenfartastic@reddit
Why nobody protest this?
So sad the world seems to pick and choose which atrocities are in need of protests.
F1McLarenFan007@reddit
It’s so sad what’s going on there, it gets zero news coverage…
Pristine_Speech4719@reddit
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/07/africa/sudan-conflict-foreign-influence-intl-cmd
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/opinion/sudan-darfur-el-fasher-uae.html
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-11-08/thousands-flee-to-overcrowded-camps-after-sudans-paramilitary-captures-el-fasher
https://www.corriere.it/argomenti/sudan/
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3331722/sudan-satellite-images-point-horrors-seized-city-el-fasher
https://www.lanacion.com.ar/el-mundo/se-hizo-rico-vendiendo-camellos-y-oro-ahora-sus-tropas-controlan-la-mitad-de-sudan-nid06112025/
sofixa11@reddit
To add, there are basically no reporters in Sudan because they have been expelled for years.
And the disaster there has been ongoing for a few years too. It is on and off in the news when big things happen (like the recent sack of El Fasher), but there isn't enough information nor enough interest for daily coverage.
snoromRsdom@reddit
The rise of fascism and the end of democracy in America seems to be a bigger story. I know. Crazy, right?
Ibroketherandom@reddit
I mean, realistically what is anyone from the US going to do about it? We have massive issues as-is.
Sensitive-Newt-6759@reddit
Thank you
VladimirsGs@reddit (OP)
Because it was transporting military personnel and maybe weapons
triple7freak1@reddit
Damn how did i miss that 😳
RIP to all who lost their lives
AlphaThree@reddit
> how did i miss that
Because media in the west has a severe bias against reporting on news from Africa.
jdkdmmernnen@reddit
This kind of take is dishonest and actually really western-centric. The reality is that there is a war, multiple aircraft have been destroyed at this airport, and information from primary sources is incomplete and inconsistent. A few days ago someone posted a list they compiled of all of the aircraft.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1oqqmvn/every_major_fatal_accident_that_occurred_during/
Furthermore, this narrative that western media is somehow in charge of anything is really ignorant. News media is in free fall and they will publish whatever consumers want, and western consumers are the ones who don’t care about Africa or news in general. All of major news sites have lost as much as 50% of their traffic in the past year. They don’t control anything.
AlphaThree@reddit
Who is playing games lol. It is a FACT that the most powerful English speaking news organizations discretionally ignore Africa.
A 2007 study examined how impactful a disaster needs to be to generate a news headlines in the United States. They found that a single death in Europe was enough for a headline. Central and South American that number was 3 deaths. Asia and Africa were each over 40 and the Pacific islands that number was 91.
The war in Sudan is a great example. As is the civil war in Yemen. Both events are a top level humanitarian crisis with allegations of civilian murder and genocide. The events going in Sudan a orders of magnitude more impactful than the events goin on in Israel, with potentially hundreds of thousands killed, Yet we are having near constant Israel coverage, protests on college campuses, entire cultural divides taking place over this single issue. How many times have you seen Sudan mentioned on CNN or FOX? In fact, here is an article posted literally a week ago about the lack of attention given to Sudan compared to Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-world-rises-up-for-gaza-sudanese-in-israel-say-larger-catastrophe-being-ignored/
To say that the Western media DOESN'T ignore Africa is asinine. And to say that how much attention a situation gets in the media is EXTREMELY important is the real ignorant take here. Media attention drastically affects humanitarian aid amounts and international political attention.
frank3nfurt3r@reddit
Biased source. Of course an Israeli news outlet is going to try and deflect criticism of their country’s ongoing genocide onto another one. And of course they need to deflect it onto an African country, because racism. This isn’t the gotcha moment you think it is
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TheRealMontoo@reddit
While I do agree that Africa is underrepresented in western media and the humanitarian crisis in Sudan deserves a lot more attention it’s unfair to say that’s just a business decision. Sudan specifically has been very hostile and downright closed to any kind of global media. Reporting in Sudan was either impossible or incredibly dangerous.
On top of that is indeed the fact people in the west are less invested in Sudan than Israel, which is much easier to cover because how exposed the conflict is.
For a long time the risk just was not worth it as a journalist. However, it seems that is slowly changing. At least where I am from the crisis in Sudan has had substantial more coverage the last few weeks.
Sventex@reddit
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, was mega giant huge global news.
myschoolcmptr@reddit
I'd argue that coverage around Ethiopian 302 was more about Boeing's trustworthiness in the West rather than the incident itself. The media is often biased.
High_AspectRatio@reddit
Because stuff getting blown up is not an interesting story depending where on the world it is
snoromRsdom@reddit
"Because media in the west has a severe bias against reporting on news from Africa."
LOL! And I'll bet African news channels run stories from Europe and America all day long. Do you even think before you type anymore?
gogoguy5678@reddit
And Eastern media is super diligent on the issue!
diaboliqueturkeybeet@reddit
it's as simple as not caring. I have enough going in my own life to not get sucked into whatever the fuck is going on in sub Saharan Africa. Sorry, but also not.
VladimirsGs@reddit (OP)
I bet if this were published in the Western media, everyone would immediately try to blame Boeing. XD
wayofaway@reddit
Yeah, a Hawker survived a missile why not a 727? ... Uh reasons
VladimirsGs@reddit (OP)
It depends on the type of missile and where it hits.
Nicktyelor@reddit
There's also no photos or videos of the event, so it never built any social media buzz.
VladimirsGs@reddit (OP)
There is a satellite image, but it was probably published predominantly in the Arab world.
Old-Cream6210@reddit
So I did some digging and I couldn't find any information on this (It's not on Wikipedia or Aviation Safety Network). However, I did find on Wikipedia about an IBM Airlines Boeing 737 incident that sounds just like this one. Maybe there was some incorrect documentation somewhere?
Pilotvictor172@reddit
Horrible to hear about.
Not important, but that is now two model airplanes that I have that had their real-world counterparts crash.
throwawayaccyaboi223@reddit
Man, maybe you should stop collecting model airplanes
/joke
VladimirsGs@reddit (OP)
The aircraft has a wingspan of at least 110 feet or even larger, which confirms that it is a Boeing 727, since it has a wingspan of 108 feet. Furthermore, I have analyzed the accident a bit more.
magnumfan89@reddit
I caught this airplane on FR24 during its ferry flight. It got to nambia just a few months ago.
dirtydriver58@reddit
https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/boeing-727-200-n726ck-kalitta-charters-ii/edpv5x?refresh=1
VladimirsGs@reddit (OP)
Sources: https://feitoffake.wordpress.com/2025/08/25/former-kalitta-boeing-727-now-reportedly-used-to-transport-weapons-for-islamist-paramilitary-in-south-sudan/ and https://sudafax.com/511106/%D8%AA%D8%AF%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%A6%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%88-%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B1%D8%B9-%D8%AE%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%AD%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%AA%D9%8A/amp
https://www.aljazeera.net/amp/news/2025/10/23/%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%81-%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%A6%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D9%85%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7-%D8%A8%D8%AC%D9%86%D9%88%D8%A8
https://www.sudanindependent.com/news/politics/2025/10/23/%D8%AA%D8%AF%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%A6%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%B4%D8%AD%D9%86-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D9%85%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7
https://www.alnilin.com/13407534.htm/amp