Pakistan International Airlines Flight 740 crashes near Taif in Mecca Province, Saudi Arabia, killing all 156 people on board.

Pakistan International Airlines Flight 740 was a Hajj pilgrimage flight from Kano, Nigeria to Karachi, Pakistan with an intermediate stopover in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Operated by Pakistan International Airlines, on 26 November 1979, the Boeing 707-340C serving the route crashed shortly after takeoff from Jeddah International Airport. All 156 people on board were killed.

Taif is a city and governorate in Mecca Province in Saudi Arabia. Located at an elevation of 1,879 m (6,165 ft) in the slopes of the Hijaz Mountains, which themselves are part of the Sarat Mountains, the city has a population of 563,282 people in 2022, making it one of the most populous cities in the kingdom.

Mecca Province, officially Makkah Province, is one of the 13 provinces of Saudi Arabia. It is the third-largest province by area at 153,128 km² (59,123 sq mi) and the second most populous with 7,769,994 inhabitants as of 2022. It is located in the historic Hejaz region, and has an extended coastline on the Red Sea. Its capital is Mecca, the holiest city in Islam, and its largest city is Jeddah, which is Saudi Arabia's main port city. The province accounts for 26.29% of the population of Saudi Arabia and is named after the Islamic holy city of Mecca.

Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about 2,150,000 km² (830,000 sq mi), making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the largest in the Middle East, and the twelfth-largest in the world. It is bordered by the Red Sea to the west; Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait to the north; the Persian Gulf, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the east; Oman to the southeast; and Yemen to the south. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northwest separates Saudi Arabia from Egypt and Israel. Saudi Arabia is the only country with a coastline along both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and most of its terrain consists of arid desert, lowland, steppe, and mountains. The capital and largest city is Riyadh; other major cities include Jeddah and the two holiest cities in Islam, Mecca and Medina. With a population of almost 32.2 million, Saudi Arabia is the fourth most populous country in the Arab world.