Avianca Flight 203 was a Colombian

domestic passenger flight A domestic flight is a form of commercial flight within civil aviation where the departure and the arrival take place in the same country. Airports serving domestic flights only are known as domestic airports. Domestic flights are generally c ...

from

El Dorado International Airport El Dorado International Airport is an international airport serving Bogotá, Colombia and its surrounding areas. The airport is located mostly in the Fontibón district of Bogotá, although it partially extends into the Engativá district and ...

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...

Alfonso Bonilla Aragón International Airport Alfonso Bonilla Aragón International Airport , formerly known as Palmaseca International Airport, is an international airport located between Palmira and Cali, the capital of Valle del Cauca Department, Colombia. It is Colombia's fourth-busies ...

Cali Santiago de Cali (), or Cali, is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, and the most populous city in southwest Colombia, with 2,227,642 residents according to the 2018 census. The city spans with of urban area, making Cali the second ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. It was destroyed by a

bomb A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the Exothermic process, exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-t ...

over the municipality of

Soacha , image_map = Colombia - Cundinamarca - Soacha.svg , map_caption = Location of Soacha in Cundinamarca , pushpin_map = Colombia , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_nam ...

on November 27, 1989. All 107 people on board as well as 3 people on the ground were killed. The bombing had been ordered by the Medellín drug cartel.

Aircraft and crew

The aircraft was a Boeing 727-21 with registration number HK-1803, serial number 19035, and manufacturing serial number 272. It had been purchased from

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

. The aircraft was built in 1966, and had its maiden flight on May 19 of the same year. The aircraft was powered by three

Pratt & Whitney Pratt & Whitney is an American aerospace manufacturer with global service operations. It is a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies. Pratt & Whitney's aircraft engines are widely used in both civil aviation (especially airlines) and military aviat ...

JT8D-7

turbofan The turbofan or fanjet is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used in aircraft engine, aircraft propulsion. The word "turbofan" is a portmanteau of "turbine" and "fan": the ''turbo'' portion refers to a gas turbine engine which ac ...

engines capable of developing up to of thrust each. The aircraft was delivered to Pan Am on May 28, and was registered as N326PA. Avianca purchased the aircraft on November 15, 1975, when it was re-registered as HK-1803. The captain was José Ignacio Ossa Aristizábal, the first officer was Fernando Pizarro Esguerra, and the flight engineer was Luis Jairo Castiblanco Vargas. There were three flight attendants on board.

Flight

Flight 203 took off as scheduled at 7:13 a.m. Five minutes into the flight, at a speed of and an altitude of , an

explosive charge An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An expl ...

detonated, causing fuel vapors in the empty central

fuel tank A fuel tank (also called a petrol tank or gas tank) is a safe container for flammable fluids. Though any storage tank for fuel may be so called, the term is typically applied to part of an engine system in which the fuel is stored and propel ...

to ignite. Eyewitnesses on the ground reported seeing fire erupt out of the right side of the aircraft's

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

. A second blast ripped the airliner apart; the nose section separated from the tail section, which went down in flames. The wreckage was scattered in a three-mile radius around the town of Soacha. All 107 people on board were killed, as well as three people on the ground who were killed by falling debris.

Aftermath

An investigation determined that

plastic explosive Plastic explosive is a soft and hand-moldable solid form of explosive material. Within the field of explosives engineering, plastic explosives are also known as putty explosives or blastics. Plastic explosives are especially suited for explos ...

s were used to destroy the plane. Drug king

Pablo Escobar Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (; ; 1 December 19492 December 1993) was a Colombian drug lord and narcoterrorist who was the founder and sole leader of the Medellín Cartel. Dubbed "the king of cocaine", Escobar is the wealthiest criminal in h ...

, of the Medellín drug cartel, planned the bombing in the lead-up to the 1990 elections, hoping the bomb plot would kill presidential candidate

César Gaviria Trujillo Cesar, César or Cèsar may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''César'' (film), a 1936 film directed by Marcel Pagnol * ''César'' (play), a play by Marcel Pagnolt * César Award, a French film award Places * Cesar, Portugal * Ce ...

. One account states that two unidentified men dressed in suits who worked for Escobar carried the bomb on board. The men sat in seats 18A and 18K, located above the main fuel tank. At the last moment, one of the men left the aircraft, while his partner stayed on board and was killed in the bombing. A young Colombian man named Alberto Prieto was duped into staying on the flight and activating the bomb once the aircraft had become airborne thus unknowingly killing himself; he had been told the device was just a recorder he had to turn on to record the conversation of a nearby couple of passengers; because of this, the man had been nicknamed "El Suizo", or "The Swiss", in reference to his role as a "suicide" bomber. Gaviria was not on the aircraft, despite Escobar's expectations, and went on to become

President of Colombia The president of Colombia ( es, Presidente de Colombia), officially known as the president of the Republic of Colombia ( es, Presidente de la República de Colombia) or president of the nation ( es, Presidente de la Nacion) is the head of stat ...

. Two Americans were among the dead, prompting the Bush Administration to begin

Intelligence Support Activity The United States Army Intelligence Support Activity (USAISA), frequently shortened to Intelligence Support Activity (ISA), also known at various times as Joint Reconnaissance Evaluation Group (JREG), Mission Support Activity (MSA), Office of Mi ...

operations to find Escobar. Nine days after the bombing of the plane, the

DAS Building bombing The DAS Building bombing was a truck bomb attack in Bogotá, Colombia, at 7:30 am on December 6, 1989, targeting the Administrative Department of Security (DAS) headquarters. A truck parked near the building exploded, killing 57 people insta ...

, presumably also ordered by the Medellín Cartel, killed 63 people in

Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera (born August 27, 1966), also known as "La Quica" (Colombian slang for "the fat girl", a childhood nickname), is a Colombian former hitman for the Medellín Cartel, a drug trafficking group. He was described as at one poin ...

, the chief

assassin Assassination is the murder of a prominent or VIP, important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not ha ...

for the Medellín Cartel, was convicted in 1994 in

United States District Court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district, which each cover o ...

of having been involved in the bombing and various other crimes, and was sentenced to 10 consecutive

life sentence Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

s. Avianca has not retired the flight number. Avianca 203 is, as of 2022, a flight from Orlando to Medellin.

Later events

On November 28, 2016, the Colombian newspaper ''

El Espectador ''El Espectador'' (meaning "The Spectator") is a newspaper with national circulation within Colombia, founded by Fidel Cano Gutiérrez on 22 March 1887 in Medellín and published since 1915 in Bogotá. It changed from a daily to a weekly editio ...

'' started publishing an investigative report, consisting of 8 chapters, on Flight 203. It argues that the explosion was caused by a malfunctioning

fuel pump A fuel pump is a component in motor vehicles that transfers liquid from the fuel tank to the carburetor or fuel injector of the internal combustion engine. Carbureted engines often use low pressure mechanical pumps that are mounted outside the f ...

inside a tank which had been reported several times before. The report was heavily criticized by Avianca and family members of the victims.

In popular culture

This event is dramatized in Season 1, Episode 6 of ''

Narcos ''Narcos'' is an American-Colombian crime drama television series created and produced by Chris Brancato, Carlo Bernard, and Doug Miro. Set and filmed in Colombia, seasons 1 and 2 are based on the story of Colombian narcoterrorist and drug kin ...

'' (2015).

References

External links

* {{Aviation incidents and accidents in 1989 1989 in Colombia 1989 crimes in Colombia Mass murder in 1989 Aviation accidents and incidents in 1989 Terrorist incidents in South America in 1989 Terrorist incidents in Colombia in the 1980s November 1989 events in South America Airliner bombings Aviation accidents and incidents in Colombia Avianca accidents and incidents Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 727 Failed assassination attempts in South America Mass murder in Colombia Organized crime events in Colombia Terrorist incidents in Colombia Medellín Cartel Pablo Escobar 1989 disasters in Colombia