The 1987 Alianza Lima air disaster occurred on 8 December 1987, when a Peruvian Navy

Fokker F27 The Fokker F27 Friendship is a turboprop airliner developed and manufactured by the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker. It is the most numerous post-war aircraft manufactured in the Netherlands; the F27 was also one of the most successful Euro ...

-400M chartered by

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

vian

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

club

Alianza Lima Club Alianza Lima, popularly known as Alianza Lima or simply Alianza, is a Peruvian professional sports club based in La Victoria District of Lima, Peru. It is widely known for having one of the most historical and successful football teams i ...

crashed into the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

seven miles from

Jorge Chávez International Airport Jorge Chávez International Airport (Aeropuerto Internacional Jorge Chávez) is Peru's main international and domestic airport. It is located in Callao, northwest from Lima Center, the nation's capital city and from the district of Miraflo ...

near the city of

Callao Callao () is a Peruvian seaside city and Regions of Peru, region on the Pacific Ocean in the Lima metropolitan area. Callao is Peru's chief seaport and home to its main airport, Jorge Chávez International Airport. Callao municipality consists o ...

. Of the 44 people on board, only the pilot survived. The Peruvian Naval Aviation Commission investigated the accident and created a report but never officially disclosed its content. Eventually, the Navy's accident report was discovered and details of it were released. In the report, investigators cited pilot error as the primary cause of the accident.

Accident

Alianza was scheduled to play a football match against

Deportivo Pucallpa Deportivo Pucallpa is a Peruvian football club, playing in the city of Pucallpa, Ucayali, Peru. History They were originally called Deportivo COOPTRIP, and played in the 1985 Torneo Descentralizado. The club participated in 1985 Torneo Descen ...

in the Amazonionan city of

Pucallpa Pucallpa (, qu, puka allpa, lit=red dirt; Shipibo language, Shipibo: ''May Ushin'') is a city in eastern Peru located on the banks of the Ucayali River, a major tributary of the Amazon River. It is the capital of the Ucayali region, the Corone ...

and had organized a charter aircraft a Folker F-27, charted by the Air Services branch of the

Peruvian Navy The Peruvian Navy ( es, link=no, Marina de Guerra del Perú, abbreviated MGP) is the branch of the Peruvian Armed Forces tasked with surveillance, patrol and defense on lakes, rivers and the Pacific Ocean up to from the Peruvian littoral. Addit ...

for the trip to Pucallpa and back. Alianza Lima won the game 1-0 to take them top of the table and were in control of the table with only a few games remaining; the team hadn't won the title since 1978 while their biggest rivals Universario and

Sporting Cristal Club Sporting Cristal S.A. is a Peruvian sports club located in the city of Lima, best known for its association football, football team. It was founded on 13 December 1955 in the Rímac District, Rímac district by engineer Richard Bentín Mujica ...

had each won 5 titles each since, therefore the team were elated and despite

pilot in command The pilot in command (PIC) of an aircraft is the person aboard the aircraft who is ultimately responsible for its operation and safety during flight. This would be the captain in a typical two- or three-pilot aircrew, or "pilot" if there is only ...

, Lieutenant Edilberto Villar having reservations and the aircraft departed Pucallpa at 6:30p.m. with Peruvian Navy Lieutenant Edilberto Villar as the

, César Morales as copilot, four cabin crewmembers and 38 players, staff and team supporters. The flight was uneventful until the crew began their descent into Lima. Upon lowering the landing gear, the left and right main gear displayed green lights, indicating down and locked, but the nose gear did not. Villar requested that Morales consult the flight manual for the proper procedure to follow. The manual was written in English and because Morales's foreign language skill was poor he read out the wrong procedure. The crew requested a fly-by of the control tower so that observers could confirm that the nose gear was down. Using binoculars the observers confirmed that the airplane was configured for landing and the crew brought the aircraft around for another attempt at a landing. While over water the aircraft flew too low and the right wing struck the surface of the ocean as the aircraft was lining up with the runway, northwest of the airport. The airliner broke up on impact and the forward fuselage sank.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was a Fokker F27-400M Friendship,

registration Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), the ...

AE-560. The airliner, with

serial number A serial number is a unique identifier assigned incrementally or sequentially to an item, to ''uniquely'' identify it. Serial numbers need not be strictly numerical. They may contain letters and other typographical symbols, or may consist enti ...

10548, had first flown in 1977 and had logged a total of 5,908 hours.

Passengers

Alianza lost the majority of its team as a result of the accident. Notable passengers on the flight included: Players * José Casanova * Luis Escobar *

José González Ganoza José González Ganoza (10 July 1954 – 8 December 1987) was a Peruvian international footballer who played as a goalkeeper. González Ganoza was among the victims of the 1987 Alianza Lima air disaster The 1987 Alianza Lima air disaster occ ...

Alfredo Tomassini Alfredo Tomasini (24 June 1964 – 8 December 1987) was a Peruvian football player. Nicknamed ''el Tanque Blanco'', Tomasini was a forward for the club Sporting Cristal between 1985 and 1986 and Alianza Lima, until 1987 when he died in an airpla ...

Johnny Watson Johnny is an English language personal name. It is usually an affectionate diminutive of the masculine given name John (given name), John, but from the 16th century it has sometimes been a given name in its own right for males and, less commonly ...

Coach *

Marcos Calderón Marcos Calderón (11 July 1928 – 8 December 1987) was a Peruvian football coach and player. During his tenure the Peru national team won the Copa América 1975 and reached the second round of the 1978 World Cup. The accident was announced to a stunned community and over the next several days some bodies were recovered from the sea.

Investigation

Following the crash the Peruvian Navy refused to make any statements concerning the cause of the accident. The Peruvian Naval Aviation Commission allowed no private investigations to take place and began its own investigation. An accident report was made but not released to the public. In 2006 producers working on a story for Peruvian television program ''La Ventana Indiscreta'' uncovered the Navy report which had been illegally locked in a Florida deposit box for 18 years. The investigation cited the pilot's lack of night flying experience, the co-pilots misreading of the emergency procedures related to the landing gear issue, and the aircraft's poor mechanical condition as contributing factors to the accident. According to the report, dated February 1988, Lieutenant Villar had logged just 5.3 hours of night flying in the 90 days preceding the accident, 3.3 of them in the previous 60 days, and had not flown at night in at least 30 days before the crash. The copilot, First Lieutenant César Morales, had logged only one hour of night flying in the 90 days preceding the accident, half an hour in the preceding 60 days, and had also not flown at night in at least 30 days. Additionally, the F27's maintenance log, which was handed to the pilot before takeoff, showed a series of mechanical defects including lacking an inertial guidance system, poor

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

radio performance, a VOR receiving unit with inadequate reception, a malfunctioning

radar altimeter A radar altimeter (RA), also called a radio altimeter (RALT), electronic altimeter, reflection altimeter, or low-range radio altimeter (LRRA), measures altitude above the terrain presently beneath an aircraft or spacecraft by timing how long it t ...

and a worn front landing gear indicator light switch. Lieutenant Villar initially refused to fly the aircraft out of concern for its condition. In a letter from the

Fokker Fokker was a Dutch aircraft manufacturer named after its founder, Anthony Fokker. The company operated under several different names. It was founded in 1912 in Berlin, Germany, and became famous for its fighter aircraft in World War I. In 1919 ...

aircraft company, dated October 16, 1986, the manufacturer noted that Lieutenant Villar had failed a special training course which could have prevented “his disorientation while operating under pressure, the excessive demand of work in a cabin”, but was granted permission to fly the aircraft regardless. Copilot César Morales had received no flight training from Fokker.

References

External links