Gulf Air Flight 072
aviation accident in Bahrain on 23 Aug. 2000
Gulf Air Flight 072 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Cairo International Airport, Egypt, to Bahrain International Airport, Bahrain, operated by Gulf Air. On 23 August 2000 at 19:30 Arabia Standard Time (UTC+3), the Airbus A320 crashed minutes after executing a go-around following a failed attempt to land on Runway 12. The flight crew suffered from spatial disorientation during the go-around and crashed into the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf 2 km (1 nmi) from the airport. All 143 people on board the aircraft were killed in what remains the deadliest aviation accident in Bahraini and Gulf Air history, and was the deadliest accident involving an Airbus A320 at the time, which was later surpassed by TAM Airlines Flight 3054.
The final report, issued on 15 August 2002, concluded that the individual factors contributing to the accident were non−adherence to a number of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) and loss of spatial and situational awareness by the aircraft crew during the approach and final phases of the flight. A number of systemic factors also contributed to the accident, including deficiency in crew resource management (CRM) training by Gulf Air and safety oversights by the Directorate General Of Civil Aviation and Meteorology of Oman.
Aircraft
Flight 072 was operated with an Airbus A320-212, registered as A4O-EK. It was delivered to Gulf Air in September 1994. It was powered by two CFM International CFM56-5A3 engines and had accumulated 17,370 hours in 13,990 takeoff and landing cycles before the accident. Its last maintenance was conducted on 17–18 August 2000. The aircraft was in compliance with all applicable airworthiness directives for the airframe and engines.
The public source identifies “Gulf Air Flight 072” as aviation accident in Bahrain on 23 Aug. 2000. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Gulf, Flight and aviation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3271379. Authority coordinates are 26.289, 50.633. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2000, 2002 and 1994.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gulf Air Flight 072” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.