Avianca Flight 410 was a flight that crashed at 13:17 on 17 March 1988, near

Cúcuta Cúcuta (), officially San José de Cúcuta, is a Colombian municipality, capital of the department of Norte de Santander and nucleus of the Metropolitan Area of Cúcuta. The city is located in the homonymous valley, at the foot of the East ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

, which occurred shortly after takeoff when it flew into a mountain. All 143 people on board were killed. It was the deadliest

aviation accident An aviation accident is an event during aircraft operation that results serious injury, death, or significant destruction. An aviation incident is any operating event that compromises safety but does not escalate into an aviation accident. Pre ...

to occur in Colombia until

American Airlines Flight 965 American Airlines Flight 965 was a regularly scheduled flight from Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida, to Alfonso Bonilla Aragón International Airport in Cali, Colombia. On December 20, 1995, the Boeing 757-200 flying this route ...

Aircraft

The

aircraft An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, i ...

involved, manufactured in 1966, was a Boeing 727-21 owned and operated by

Avianca Avianca S.A. (acronym in Spanish for ''Aerovias de Colombia S.A.'', "Airways of Colombia", and stylized as avianca since October 2023) is the largest airline in Colombia. It has been the flag carrier of Colombia since December 5, 1919, when it ...

. It was

registered Registered may refer to: * Registered mail, letters, packets or other postal documents considered valuable and in need of a chain of custody * Registered trademark symbol, symbol ® that provides notice that the preceding is a trademark or service ...

as HK-1716

serial number A serial number (SN) is a unique identifier used to ''uniquely'' identify an item, and is usually assigned incrementally or sequentially. Despite being called serial "numbers", they do not need to be strictly numerical and may contain letters ...

18999. It had flown previously with

Pan Am Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and more commonly known as Pan Am, was an airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States for ...

, originally registered as N321PA and named Clipper Koln-Bonn; it was sold on 20 September 1974, to Avianca. It had logged 43,848 hours of airframe time and was powered by three Pratt & Whitney JT8D-7A engines.

Description

The plane took off from Cúcuta at around 13:17 from runway 33 bound for Cartagena. There was no further information from the plane until ground witnesses claimed that they saw a Boeing 727 flying too low. The plane contacted some trees and then, at 13:18, it struck the mountain head on. The 727 broke in half and disintegrated when the fuel exploded; the remains were scattered in a radius. There were no survivors among the 7 crew and 136 passengers. Rescue operations and commissions rushed to the crash site, which was impossible to reach due to nightfall and the resulting low visibility. Area residents provided light and helped the rescuers reach the top of the mountain, where the rest of the wreckage was. The next day, the remains were transported back to Cúcuta to be identified by their family members.

Investigation

The official cause of the crash was a

controlled flight into terrain In aviation, a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT; usually ) is an aviation accidents and incidents, accident in which an airworthy aircraft, fully under pilot control, is unintentionally flown into the ground, a body of water or other obstac ...

at 6,343 feet. The investigation pointed to a number of probable causes, including a non-crew

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

in the cockpit, whose presence diverted the attention of the pilot and who interfered with the operation of the aircraft, and a lack of teamwork ( crew resource management) between the pilot and co-pilot.

Aftermath

The crash of Flight 410 was the deadliest aviation accident to occur in Colombia until 20 December 1995, when

crashed into a mountain near

Buga, Valle del Cauca Buga (), formally Guadalajara de Buga, is a city and municipality in the Valle del Cauca Department of Colombia. It is famous for its Basilica del Señor de los Milagros, which houses an image of Christ called ''el Señor de los Milagros'' ("th ...

, killing 159 people. The cause was determined to be

pilot error In aviation, pilot error generally refers to an action or decision made by a Aircraft pilot#Airline, pilot that is a substantial contributing factor leading to an Aviation accidents and incidents, aviation accident. It also includes a pilot ...

References

External links

* *

ICAO The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international sch ...

reports: **ICAO Circular 2660-AN/154 (12-26) **ICAO Adrep Summary 2/88 (#5)
Final report
- Civil Aviation Department, Colombia, prepared by Harro Ranter,

Aviation Safety Network The Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit, international organization concerning research, education, advocacy, and communications in the field of aviation safety. FSF brings together aviation professionals to help solve safety problems ...