Summary CFIT by pilot error Crew 8 Survivors 0 Number of deaths 119 Operator TAME Passenger count 111 | Passengers 111 Fatalities 119 Date 11 July 1983 Injuries (nonfatal) 0 Survivor 0 | |
Site Cuenca, Ecuador
2°51'55.3"S 78°56'59.5"W Similar TAAG Angola Airlines Fl, Aeroflot Flight 601, Aeroflot Flight 5463, Gulf Air Flight 771, Madrid runway disaster | ||
The 1983 TAME Boeing 737-200 crash was an aviation incident in which a Boeing 737-2V2 Advanced, operated by the Ecuadorian national airline TAME, which was flying on a domestic route from Mariscal Sucre International Airport in Quito to Mariscal Lamar Airport in Cuenca, crashed into a hill during final approach just one mile (1.6 km) from its final destination, killing all 119 people on board.
Contents
The crash was the first and deadliest crash in the history of TAME, and it remains as the deadliest plane crash in the history of Ecuador. An investigation later determined that the flight crashed due to the flight crew's lack of experience on the aircraft type, which caused a controlled flight into terrain.
Aircraft
The aircraft involved in the accident was a Boeing 737-2V2 Advanced, with Pratt & Whitney type JT8D-17 engines. When Boeing delivered it, it was registered as N8283V, but when it arrived in the TAME fleet in 1981, its registration and livery changed to HC-BIG. TAME named it "Ciudad de Loja".
Flight history
On the morning of 11 July 1983, the aircraft took off from Mariscal Sucre International Airport in Quito for a domestic flight to Mariscal Lamar Airport in Cuenca with 111 passengers and eight crew members. The aircraft encountered foggy conditions during the final approach to Mariscal Lamar Airport, but the weather conditions of that day were reported as clear. The crew contacted the Cuenca control tower for permission to land the plane, which was granted.
During the final few minutes of the flight, the pilots went distracted during a conversation and didn't know that the plane was flying dangerously low towards a mountain. Also, at the same time, they were experimenting with some of the aircraft's controls and systems.
Seconds before the plane hit the mountain and one mile (1.6 km) from the airport, the Ground Proximity Warning System activated, announcing an imminent terrain collision and sounding an alarm. The captain and first officer attempted to climb clear of the mountain by applying full power on the engines and making a steep climb, but it was too late. The jetliner scraped a mountain peak, exploded, and slid down into a ravine; there were no survivors.
Two minutes after the plane signal was lost from the radar screen, Cuenca air traffic control declared an emergency. The following day, search aircraft and rescue teams arrived the plane's last known position. Because of the remoteness and the difficulty of access to the crash site, it took rescue personnel several hours to reach the site itself.
Investigation
After initial fears of a possible sabotage were advanced by the civil aviation authorities after a radio station reported witnesses to a mid-air explosion. During the investigation, this was discarded due to lack of evidence. The "civil authorities" of aviation initiated an investigation, with cooperation of Boeing, Pratt & Whitney and the United States National Transportation Safety Board.
The investigation results were presented several months later and concluded that human error was a direct cause the crash, several factor were identified: training of the pilots was not properly delivered by TAME for the Boeing 737-2V2 Advanced, the crew was not fully familiar with the controls of the aircraft, and the crew was distracted while trying to locate the runway in heavy fog, as a consequence, the plane went below the minimum safe altitude in a mountainous region with the flight crew ignoring the voice commands of the proximity radar until seconds before impact.