LANSA Flight 508

LANSA Flight 508 was a Lockheed L-188A Electra turboprop operated as a scheduled domestic passenger flight by Lineas Aéreas Nacionales Sociedad Anonima (LANSA, a Peruvian airline company) that crashed in a thunderstorm en route from Lima to Pucallpa in Peru on 24 December 1971, killing 91 people – all six crew on board and 85 of its 86 passengers. It is regarded in popular retellings as the deadliest lightning strike disaster in aviation history.

Accident

LANSA Flight 508 departed Lima's Jorge Chávez International Airport just before noon on Christmas Eve on its way to Iquitos, Peru, with a scheduled stop at Pucallpa. The aircraft was flying at about above mean sea level when it encountered an area of thunderstorms and severe turbulence. Some evidence showed the crew decided to continue the flight despite the hazardous weather ahead, apparently because of pressure to meet the holiday schedule. Peruvian investigators cited "intentional flight into hazardous weather conditions" as a cause of the crash.

After flying for twenty minutes in this weather at FL210 lightning struck the aircraft, causing fire on the right wing which separated, along with part of the left wing. The aircraft crashed in flames into mountainous terrain. Structural failure occurred because of the loads imposed on the aircraft flying through a severe thunderstorm, but also because of stresses resulting from the maneuver to level out the aircraft.

Victims and sole survivor

The sole survivor was 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke, who while strapped to her seat fell into the Amazon rainforest. She survived the fall with a broken collarbone, a deep gash to her right arm, an eye injury, and concussion. She was able to trek through the dense Amazon jungle for 10 days and found shelter in a hut. Local lumberjacks found her and took her by canoe back to civilization. The Electra was LANSA's last aircraft; the company lost its operating permit eleven days later.

As many as 14 other passengers were also later found to have survived the crash, but died awaiting rescue, including Koepcke's mother.

In popular culture

The movie '' Miracles Still Happen'' (1974) is based on the story. Koepcke's story was also told in the documentary film '' Wings of Hope'' (1998) by director Werner Herzog, who had narrowly avoided taking the same flight, when his reservation had been canceled due to a last minute change in itinerary. Koepcke's memoir was published by the German publisher Piper Malik on March 10, 2011. (The English edition, titled ''When I Fell From the Sky'', was published by Titletown Publishing in November 2011.)

The crash also features in the final season one episode of the Discovery Channel documentary ''Aircrash Confidential''. The episode was first aired in 2011, and features an interview with Koepcke.

See also

* List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft
* List of sole survivors of aviation accidents and incidents
* Braniff International Airways Flight 352 -- a similar wing-overload crash in the same type of aircraft caused when the crew attempted to fly through a severe thunderstorm. This incident might provide an alternative explanation of the cause for wing-separation independent of a lightning-strike, as severe turbulence caused by the storm and the crew's efforts to correct for it proved sufficient to overload the wing without prior structural damage due to fire.

References

External links

Photo of Accident Aircraft on Aviation Safety Site





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Falling Rain

BBC News - Juliane Koepcke: How I survived a plane crash

{{Aviation accidents and incidents in 1971

Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error
Airliner accidents and incidents caused by lightning strikes
Aviation accidents and incidents in Peru
Aviation accidents and incidents in 1971
Accidents and incidents involving the Lockheed L-188 Electra
508
1971 in Peru
1971 meteorology
December 1971 in South America
1971 disasters in Peru
Aviation accidents and incidents caused by clear air turbulence