Tans plane crash in Peruvian Amazon area

[graemewood]

bbc radio 5live reporting plane crash in peru, after take off in lima, no more details, anyone heard anything else?

[gofer]

Reports just coming through on the ticker that TANS a Perouvian Airline has a plane down in the forest region near Pucallpa and that there are some survivors. The plane was on its way from Lima to Pucallpa.

No knowledge of plane type, numbers as yet.
News here (http://www.sfdrs.ch/system/frames/news/sda-news/index.php?/content/news/sda-news/meldung.php?docid=20050823brd120)

[RiverCity]

This from cnn.com

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/08/23/peru.crash.ap/index.html

[Alty]

TANS flies 737-200's.

[172driver]

got a report that it was a 737 - definitely not very good days for aviation....

[IBMN]

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - A Peruvian passenger plane
crashed in heavy storms in Peru's northeastern jungle
Tuesday, killing at least 40 people, police said.
A spokesman for the state-run airline TANS said the Boeing
737-200 plane, which had a capacity of 120 passengers, made an
emergency landing without its landing gear in the jungle town
of Pucallpa, 490 miles northeast of Lima.
It was not immediately clear if the plane was taking off or
landing. It was due to fly to the northern jungle city of
Iquitos.
"There are 40 cadavers that rescue teams are pulling from
the wreckage. There could be more deaths, we assume some 60
people in total since we've rescued 20 injured persons," a
police officer in Pucallpa told RPP radio.
Peru's Transport Minister, Jose Ortiz, said 93 passengers
were on board the plane. TANS declined to comment.
"It's really a Dantesque scene," said police officer Arioso
Obregon, referring to the apparent destruction the aircraft.
One witness, Tomas Ruiz, told RPP radio the plane was
"totally destroyed."
"The plane made an emergency landing but without its
landing gear," said firefighter Ilda Pineda. "The weather was
really terrible, there was a fierce storm at the time," said a
police officer in Pucallpa.
TANS, founded in the 1960s by the Peruvian air force to
help serve remote jungle communities, started up as a
commercial airline in 1998. It has around 30 percent of the
local market.
(Additional reporting by Tania Mellado)
REUTERS

[robdean]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4178868.stm

[N380UA]

From local paper. news (http://www.nzz.ch/2005/08/24/vm/newzzECR3PX8I-12.html)

100 SOB, 92 Pax + 8 Crew. 41 dead 59 survivors.
The flight made an emergency landing on a highway as they experienced windshear. One of the "black boxes" has already been found.
No speculations of the cause – as of yet.

[Sensible Garage]

reg OB-1809-P (confirmed) B737-244 22580 ex ZS-SIA with TANS (Transportes Aéreos Nacionales de la Selva) Route: Lima-Pucallpa-Iquitos Flightnumber: TJ-204

TANS is military transport section of the Peruvian air force that runs route (to remote locations) that airlines hardly touch for lack of revenue

[GrahamCurry]

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13419041,00.html

[GearDown&Locked]

Sounds similar to the '92 Martinair crash at Faro. (http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19921221-0)

GD&L

[jewitts]

Interesting to note that this incident in Peru has only merited one page of comment whereas the Helios incident in Greece is now up to 57 pages. Perhaps just too many incidents to focus on!

[Bre901]

Just a matter of distance : the Venezuela crash thread is only 6 pages long. The french media talk about it everyday and Pres. Chirac has traveled to Martinique for the "funeral". If the passengers had originated from Bermuda or any British West Indies island, that thread would be over 50 pages long too.

No criticism implied here, this is a mere fact of life.

[robdean]

I don't think it's just distance - the Helios crash is especially unsettling and mysterious, the Peruvian crash at first impression much more intuitive to explain... (and the Helios crash happened some time ago too, so the thread has had time to grow)

[greek-freak]

I don't think it's just distance - the Helios crash is especially unsettling and mysterious, the Peruvian crash at first impression much more intuitive to explain...

I agree. Don't you think that the recent accumulation of crashes might also be due to the fact that we are at the peak of the touristic season, pilots, controllers, and acft all working/flying at their limits?

[jewitts]

Robdean, The Helios thread was up to page 16 within 24 hours. Air France at YYZ was also up to 13 pages at the 24 hour point. In peru it seems there are 11 Americans and 3 Europeans and 50 (claimed) survivors. For Air France it seems that much of the early text was praise for the crew doing their job without really knowing wheter the crew had done well or not. I don't see much of that here for the TANS crew.

[White Knight]

I don't think so Greek-freak, after all there's a peak season every summer and there hasn't been such a terrible run of accidents/crashes for a VERY LONG TIME..

[greek-freak]

White Knight: That's also true, but still the probability that something might happen is higher.

[ironbutt57]

The froggies made it to the runway...albeit the last half.....but they pay lots of money to the media.and the UN...the TANS crew might have performed much more proficiently to the end...but their gov't isnt as powerful..and they didn't survive..so there you have it....aviation, and the media at it's best:{ :yuk:

[Chronic Snoozer]

.....not to mention the ATR that ditched near Palermo, that thread has gone real quiet.....

[wes_wall]

Press reports state "Emergency Landing - Attempt to land in a swamp. " Any idea what kind of an emergency, radio transmission, etc. Whats the rational behind emergency landing attempt? Same old, same old.

By the way, whats so important about the number of posts?

[LatviaCalling]

As an old and retired journalist before my demise into the blogosphere, I used to be a foreign editor for a major news agency. To put it quite succintly, even at that time, Central and South American news made it to the wire only after American and European news. Not my quote, "but who cares what happens in Peru." Peru? Where is that? Sad but true.

[RatherBeFlying]

Helios happened just outside a major European city infested with journos; pretty much same deal with AF358.

The SA accidents are harder for journos to get to. Also the SA journos don't seem to have contacts with the investigators in Peru and Venezuela as there's not much information coming out.

The big coverage in France is that Chirac is visiting Martinique for a national memorial ceremony in a stadium.

[broadreach]

Have scanned the Peruvian news and there doesn't seem to be much in the way of new information since yesterday 23 Aug.

The basics are, or appear to be as reported by the papers: the aircraft met windshear on its first (or third, according to one paper) approach, hitting the ground gear down several km from the threshold, ploughing through 500m of flat, soggy ground in torrential rain, finally breaking up and catching fire. The few photographs show a distinct path.

Early reports of "emergency landing on a highway" might be ill-founded conjecture; no indication that the aircraft touched down on the highway and, in the conditions papers describe I would doubt they could see anything ahead.

42 of the 100 on board (including captain and FO) died during or after the accident and an unknown number are in serious condition. Many, though, were able to walk away.

The 737-200 was on the first leg of a Lima-Pucallpa-Iquitos-Pucallpa-Lima trip and the alternates for Pucallpa are Lima, Iquitos or Tingo Maria (latter closest, 30 minutes north, but usually worse for weather - and surrounding hills - than Pucallpa if memory serves).

That route has never been a favourite with crews. I believe it's still the longest single daily flying job in Peru and, if the aircraft is delayed getting into Pucallpa in either direction it may well mean an overnight, delays to the next day's flights and many questions as to why.

[broadreach]

Infographic in Spanish.

http://www.elcomercioperu.com.pe/edicionimpresa/photo/info_avion24.jpg

[barry lloyd]

broadreach:

Having flown into Pucallpa many times in days gone by, albeit as a passenger, but occasionally on the flight deck, I would agree with your observations. There is no highway worthy of the name near Pucallpa. In my time, many of the main streets in the town were just compacted earth, and I doubt if much has changed. This is a poor area of a poor country. Also, it is a town which because of its' geographical position suffers from sudden and unexpected storms, and you're right about Tingo Maria - the pilots hate the place because of its' topography and unpredictability.
Faucett used to do the run when I went up there, so it's a few years ago, but I doubt if much has changed: poor/no guidance systems, animals on the airfield, poor runway drainage etc.
The fact that the military has taken over the route doesn't inspire me with confidence either. The record of their near neighbours TAME (Ecuador) and SATENA (Colombia) is poor in this respect, and they have suffered many accidents at their respective remote airfields.
As to media coverage in Europe, the old headline 'Small earthquake in Chile - not many killed' comes to mind

[broadreach]

barry lloyd,

Your comments re Tingo as an alternate coincide with my own recollection from when we handled Faucett in IQT. Pucallpa itself had improved considerably from when it was a dirt strip and the main road, requiring a low-level pass to get most of the people off the runway.

One of the things about jungle flying in areas that aren't that navigationally well-endowed is that, when the weather's really crappy, you get down under the cloud and do it visually. When the then brand new airport at Iquitos was opened I remember being on a flight operated by the prececessor of TANS, in a new F-28, where we did sixteen (yes!) approaches before landing, all the time flying at well under 2,000ft.

Pucallpa has better visual references than Iquitos, the main one being the highway to Lima, which passes close to the threshold and is arrow-straight for miles and miles. It would certainly be the main visual cue for anyone experienced on that run and, my guess, might account for early speculation that they were attempting an "emergency landing" on it. Which makes no sense at all. If anything, they'd have identified where they were in relation to the runway from their glimpses of the highway and were caught out by the downburst as they veered away right from it to then turn left and line up.

Another thread's been started focusing on post-crash looting. Not too surprising when an accident occurs near a populated area, between the time of the event itself and that of an organised force arriving on the scene. And pretty much the same thing in most poor countries and regardless of the type of disaster. Road crashes, or a truck loaded with rice turning over on a bend. The same villagers were the first to appear and - I would guess - would have been instrumental in helping a lot of people out of the aircraft and away from the accident. Some of them would take advantage and a poorly trained rescue team of conscripts wouldn't have the faintest idea of the importance of leaving mechanical remains in situ for analysis by the accident investigation team.

Edited to add that: back in the days when we didn't have accident investigation teams or the web, and before masses of people flew through the air in tin tubes, major accidents usually happened at sea. Looting and scavenging back then contributed a reasonable percentage of GDP to coastal Devonian, Cornwellian and Welsh populations. Still does, in a smaller way, in other parts of the world. Ever been to Anegada?

[broadreach]

Peruvian press has moved on to other issues. Only news today was that the aircraft was in fact aligned with the runway and that most survivors exited rear door(s?) into a hailstorm.

For anyone interested in a synopsis of the larger Tans dilemma (Tans are a commercial subsidiary of the Peruvian airforce) here's a link in Spanish from a newspaper called Liberacion:

http://www.prensaescrita.com/diarios.php?codigo=AME&pagina=http://www.dialiberacion.com

NN, hunh?

[broadreach]

One of the recorders, not sure which, was found soon after the crash but the other was missing and presumed buried in the swamp or carried off as a souvenir.

As it happened, it was the latter. A US$500 reward was offered and it turned up yesterday.

edited: appears CVR was found first, soon after the accident. The one returned yesterday was the FDR.

[UNCTUOUS]

Jacdec's Special coverage is reporting a double flame-out having been reported by the pilots (must have been before impact)

<<According to media reports, the pilots reported a double engine flame out on approach when flying through an area of severe downpour. >>

Not surprising given the survivors' reports of heavy hail - and the prior incidents of 737 flame-out in heavy precipitation.

see this link (Garuda 733 (http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20020116-0)