November 26

On November 26, 1998, dense winter fog on the Delhi–Amritsar mainline contributed to a rear‑end collision near Khanna in Ludhiana district, Punjab. Two passenger trains collided in the early morning hours; several coaches were crushed and derailed, and the accident left multiple dead and many injured amid chaotic fog-bound rescue efforts. Official inquiry later attributed the crash to human and operational factors interacting with low-visibility conditions.

On November 26, 1979, Pakistan International Airlines Flight 740—a Boeing 707 carrying Hajj pilgrims between Jeddah and Karachi—caught fire in flight near Taif, Saudi Arabia. The crew declared an emergency and attempted to divert, but the blaze overwhelmed the aircraft. All 156 people on board were killed; investigators could not determine a definitive ignition source because the wreckage was consumed by fire.

On the morning of November 26, 1943, the troopship HMT Rohna, carrying mostly U.S. Army personnel, was struck off the Algerian coast by a German radio‑controlled glide bomb launched from a Dornier Do 217. The weapon’s impact and resulting fires left lifeboats unusable, oil and flames on the sea hampered rescue, and the ship sank with the loss of 1,138 lives. Wartime secrecy obscured details for decades, and the sinking pressured Allies to develop electronic countermeasures and change convoy protections.

On November 26, 1914, the Royal Navy pre-dreadnought HMS Bulwark exploded while anchored off Sheerness in the Thames Estuary. The blast destroyed the ship and killed nearly her entire company—about 741 men by contemporary returns—leaving a stunned naval community, a grim recovery operation along the Medway, and an inquiry that concluded an accidental magazine or cordite ignition was the most likely cause.