LACSA Flight 628 was a scheduled passenger flight operated by a

Boeing 727-100 The Boeing 727 is an American narrow-body airliner that was developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After the heavier 707 quad-jet was introduced in 1958, Boeing addressed the demand for shorter flight lengths from smaller airp ...

serving Líneas Aéreas Costarricences. On 23 May 1988, the aircraft crashed while attempting takeoff at

Juan Santamaría International Airport Juan Santamaría International Airport () is the primary airport serving San José, the capital of Costa Rica. The airport is located in Alajuela Province, northwest of downtown San José. It is named after Costa Rica's national hero, Juan ...

San José, Costa Rica San José (; meaning "Saint Joseph") is the capital city, capital and largest city of Costa Rica, and the capital of San José Province. It is in the center of the country, in the mid-west of the Costa Rican Central Valley, Central Valley, wi ...

. All 24 occupants on board survived the crash.

Aircraft

The aircraft was a

(model 727-22) built in 1965, serial number 18856, registered TI-LRC and powered by two

Pratt & Whitney JT8D The Pratt & Whitney JT8D is a low-bypass (0.96 to 1) turbofan engine introduced by Pratt & Whitney in February 1963 with the inaugural flight of the Boeing 727. It was a modification of the Pratt & Whitney J52 turbojet engine which powered the ...

-7B engines. The aircraft was delivered to Líneas Aéreas Costarricences (LACSA) in May 1987, and had accumulated 50,624 hours and 40,903 flight cycles before being decommissioned following the accident.

Passengers and crew

On board were 16 passengers and 8 crew members: three pilots and five flight attendants. Captain Armando D'Ambrossio Morales, co-pilot Armando Rojas Aguilar, and flight engineer Héctor Araya Naranjo.

Accident

The flight was scheduled to fly from

to Augusto Sandino International Airport in

Managua, Nicaragua Managua () is the capital city, capital and largest city of Nicaragua, and one of the List of largest cities in Central America, largest cities in Central America. Located on the shores of Lake Managua, the city had an estimated population of 1, ...

. During takeoff on runway 7, the aircraft reached critical

rotation speed Rotational frequency, also known as rotational speed or rate of rotation (symbols ''ν'', lowercase Greek nu, and also ''n''), is the frequency of rotation of an object around an axis. Its SI unit is the reciprocal seconds (s−1); other com ...

(V1) and the captain initiated the takeoff maneuver, but the aircraft did not respond. The crew decided to abort the procedure and initiated an emergency braking maneuver. Unable to stop in the remaining distance of the runway, the aircraft overshot, crossed a ditch and stopped in a field, where it caught fire. All 24 occupants suffered minor injuries, while the aircraft was destroyed by the fire.

Investigation

The

Directorate General of Civil Aviation of Costa Rica The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (, DGAC), is the civil aviation authority of Costa Rica. It oversees all aspects of civil aviation operations and infrastructure within the country. The body was created by law on 26 October 1949. Its he ...

was in charge of the investigations following the accident. The DGAC, in its final report,stated about the possible causes of the accident: * The excess weight in the forward cargo hold shifted the center of gravity forward. * Two additional trim units would have been required for takeoff. * The aircraft did not respond correctly to the pilot's pitch input during the roll phase. * This was caused by an incorrect adjustment of the aircraft's horizontal stabilizer.

Probable Cause

Excessive weight in the forward hold, combined with incorrect horizontal stabilizer trim that shifted the center of gravity forward and caused an improper trim setting, prevented the aircraft from responding as expected to pitch control during rotation.

References