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TANS Perú Flight 204 was a domestic scheduled
Lima Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 as the Ciudad de los Reyes (, Spanish for "City of Biblical Magi, Kings"), is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rive ...
Pucallpa Pucallpa (, ; 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 Coronel Portillo Province and the C ...
Iquitos Iquitos (; ) is the capital city of Peru's Maynas Province, Peru, Maynas Province and Loreto Region. It is the largest metropolis in the Peruvian Amazon, east of the Andes, as well as the List of cities in Peru, ninth-most populous city in Peru ...
passenger service, operated with a Boeing 737-200 Advanced, that crashed on 23 August 2005 on approach to Pucallpa Airport, off the airfield, following an
emergency landing An emergency landing is a premature landing made by an aircraft in response to an emergency involving an imminent or ongoing threat to the safety and operation of the aircraft, or involving a sudden need for a passenger or crew on board to term ...
attempt because of bad weather, killing 40 of the 98 passengers and crew aboard.


Aircraft and crew

The aircraft involved was a 1981-built Boeing 737-244 Advanced
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 ...
OB-1809, which had been
lease A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...
d to TANS Perú from the South African lessor company
Safair Safair is an airline based at the O.R. Tambo International Airport in Kempton Park, South Africa. It operates one of the world's largest fleets of civil Lockheed L-100 Hercules cargo aircraft.
two months prior to the accident. With
manufacturer's 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 ...
22580 and powered with two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-17A engines, the airframe had its maiden flight on 4 August 1981, and was originally delivered to
South African Airways South African Airways (SAA) is the flag carrier of South Africa. Founded in 1929 as Union Airways it later rebranded to South African Airways in 1934, the airline is headquartered in Airways Park at O. R. Tambo International Airport in Johannes ...
. At the time of the accident, the aircraft had accumulated 49,865 flight hours and 45,262 cycles, and was years old. The captain was 45-year-old Octavio Perez Palma Garreta, who had 5,867 flight hours, including 3,763 hours on the Boeing 737. The first officer was 37-year-old Jorge Luis Pinto Panta, who had 4,755 flight hours, with 1,109 of them on the Boeing 737; 38-year-old Gonzalo Chirinos Delgado, a trainee pilot, was also on board. He had 2,700 flight hours, but only 61 of them on the Boeing 737.


Description of the accident

An unusual
cold front A cold front is the leading edge of a cooler mass of air at ground level that replaces a warmer mass of air and lies within a pronounced surface Trough (meteorology), trough of Low-pressure area, low pressure. It often forms behind an extratropica ...
was developing in the vicinity of Pucallpa, minutes before the event took place, with
cloud top The cloud top (or the top of the cloud) is the highest altitude of the visible portion of a cloud. It is traditionally expressed either in metres above the Earth (or planetary) surface, or as the corresponding pressure level in hectopascal (hPa, eq ...
s estimated to be high. Instead of diverting to another airport, the crew initiated the approach to Pucallpa Airport with torrential rain, hail, and strong winds. Some 10 minutes before the scheduled time for landing, the aircraft started rocking. The aircraft flew through a
hail Hail is a form of solid Precipitation (meteorology), precipitation. It is distinct from ice pellets (American English "sleet"), though the two are often confused. It consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice, each of which is called a hailsto ...
storm for the last 32 seconds of its ill-fated flight when it was taken down by wind shear, hit tree tops and impacted a
swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...
located ahead of the
runway In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...
threshold. The aircraft broke up as it crashed and burst into flames, leaving a path of debris and flaming fuel wide and long. The wreckage of the airplane was engulfed by the fire. With 91 passengers and seven crew members on board, 35 passengers and five crew (including the three pilots) died in the accident. Non-
Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...
vian occupants of the aircraft included 11
Americans Americans are the Citizenship of the United States, citizens and United States nationality law, nationals of the United States, United States of America.; ; Law of the United States, U.S. federal law does not equate nationality with Race (hu ...
, one Australian, one Colombian, and one
Spaniard Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance languages, Romance-speaking Ethnicity, ethnic group native to the Iberian Peninsula, primarily associated with the modern Nation state, nation-state of Spain. Genetics, Genetically and Ethnolinguisti ...
; Italians were also aboard, but the actual number of them depends upon the source consulted. Most of the fatalities were recorded for passengers travelling in the front of the aircraft. Fifty-eight people survived the accident, many of them suffering burns and broken limbs.


Investigation

Investigation of the crash site was hindered by looters, who descended upon the crash and stole various elements to be sold for scrap. A reward did succeed in securing the return of the
flight data recorder A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to colloquially as a "black box", an outdated nam ...
. After 312 days of investigations, no technical malfunctions were reported. The official cause of the accident 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 ...
for not following standard procedures under adverse weather conditions. The captain took control of the plane, but the trainee pilot did not immediately monitor the instruments; as a result, the crew did not notice the rapid descent in the few crucial seconds they had where they could have avoided danger. According to
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 ...
, the accident ranks among the more deadly ones that took place in 2005. It was also the second major crash involving a TANS Perú airplane in slightly over two years.


In the media

Flight 204 has been the subject of a ''
Reader's Digest ''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wi ...
'' story and an
MSNBC MSNBC is an American cable news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Launched on July 15, 1996, and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the channel primarily broadcasts r ...
documentary. The Canadian TV series, ''
Mayday Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice-procedure radio communications. It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency primarily by aviators and mariners, but in some countries local organiz ...
'', has also produced an episode about the accident named "Blind Landing".


See also

* List of aviation accidents and incidents involving CFIT


References


External links


Final report
*  *  {{DEFAULTSORT:Tans Peru Flight 204 Airliner accidents and incidents caused by weather Aviation accidents and incidents in 2005 Aviation accidents and incidents in Peru Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 737 Original 2005 meteorology August 2005 in South America 204