You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Spanish. (January 2017)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 5,275 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Spanish Wikipedia article at [[:es:Vuelo 011 de SAETA]]; see its history for attribution.
You should also add the template {{Translated|es|Vuelo 011 de SAETA}} to the talk page.
SAETA Flight 232 was a routine passenger flight operated by SAETA Air Ecuador between Quito and Cuenca, using a Vickers Viscount785D aircraft. On 15 August 1976, the flight was reported missing near the Chimborazostratovolcano while carrying 55 passengers and four crew members. Searches for the plane would be carried out for 26 years, until the wreckage of the aircraft was officially located in February 2003.
The pilot's last contact with the control tower took place over the city of Ambato. As a result of the remote location of the crash site, the wreckage was hidden amidst the glacier of Chimborazo, making location of the plane prohibitively difficult. The place of impact was declared a graveyard, and the remains were not recovered. This led to intense speculation over the cause of the disappearance, including rumors of a potential hijacking,[1] as well as some controversy when the wreckage was located.
The plane was eventually found at 5,310 meters (17,420 feet) by two members of the Nuevos Horizontes mountaineering club, Pablo Chiquiza and Flavio Armas, while exploring a new hiking route to the summit of Chimborazo. However, they did not report it immediately. The discovery wasn't confirmed until February 2003, when a team hired by the television network Teleamazonas went up the volcano to record a video of the wreckage. Human remains were found, as well as newspapers from the day the plane disappeared, and identification cards of known passengers.[2][3][4]
Discovery
After unsuccessful searches for the remains of the aircraft (both by air and on land) in the area of the route towards Cuenca and other places like the Ozogoche area, south of the Chimborazo province, in the Ecuadorian coast and the Ecuadorian East, neither the plane nor its occupants could be found. Relatives of the victims sought supernatural explanations and asked for the help of psychics; some even hinted at the theory of alien abduction. The search was terminated without finding a single trace.
In October 2002, 26 years after the accident, mountaineers Pablo Chíquiza and Flavio Armas ascended a nearly unexplored face of the snowy mountain. On the second day of search they ran up into the remains of the plane at 5,550 meters. Impressed by such a finding, they took samples of the cans and newspapers that, in spite of the past 26 years, were still legible. They continued up the mountain, but after climbing several additional meters, they decided to turn around to stay overnight with the remains. On the third day, they descended down the mountain.
Months later, on 14 February 2003, widespread news of the plane's discovery by mountaineer Miguel Cazar, who was interviewed by Teleamazonas, revealed that they had seen both metal and human remains in the García Moreno glacier of the Chimborazo volcano. The mountaineers and discoverers, Chíquiza and Armas, accompanied by soldiers from Ecuador's "Special Forces 9th Brigade" (Spanish: Brigada de Fuerzas Especiales N°9 Patria), arrived at the volcano to mark the exact site where they found the remains of the plane.
After reading the newspapers of the time and confirming with a document from the General Civil Aviation Directorate (DAC) obtained by retired Major Galo Arrieta, they concluded that the plane still had not been found. Arrieta established contact with Pablo Chíquiza during the two days of discovery and promised to help them with the investigation, as well as the subsequent broadcast of the discovery, as long as the first to hear of the news was then-elected PresidentLucio Gutiérrez.[5]
Therefore, on 23 December of the same year, Chíquiza and Armas ventured back up to the Chimborazo, this time specifically looking for evidence such as personal artifacts or aircraft identifiers that could verify the presumed identity of the flight. At the discretion of the climbers, the search for human remains was laborious. Nevertheless, in spite of the snow that covered the area of the accident, they succeeded in finding the identification document of one of the passengers. With the said document, they believed their search was sufficient and descended the mountain.
After turning over the document and other evidence of the plane to Arrieta, the wait for the news release was longer than they expected. According to the climbers, Arrieta "dragged his feet on the matter" until finally, after pressuring the colonel and not obtaining an interview with Lucio Gutiérrez as they had been promised, they obtained an interview with the minister of Defense, Nelson Herrera, who immediately ordered a military expedition be sent to the place of discovery and to spread the news.
Due to the delayed release of news regarding the discovery, a series of investigations began under the authority of the National Congress,[4] the police, and the government. According to Bernardo Abad, a journalist for Teleamazonas, they asked for thousands of dollars for the video Rodrigo Donoso delivered to the channel and its subsequent broadcast. According to some photographers, he also wanted to sell them photos for 100 dollars.
On their side, Chíquiza and Armas presented another video in Canal Uno hours before Teleamazonas to refute that Donoso and his team were the head of the discovery. Chíquiza, Armas, Donoso, among others, testified in Congress, giving their versions to the district attorney's office as well. On his side of the case, Arrieta admitted that he knew of the discovery but, according to him, "had to make sure the president (Lucio Gutiérrez) was the first to find out and for this reason, could not share the news with other people."
The families, in spite of the pain and outrage of all these facts, finally knew with near certainty what happened to the plane and where their loved ones lay. Later, by the suggestion of the military and the climbers Chíquiza and Armas, the area where they found the remains was declared a holy field due to the difficulty of recovering all the bodies.
Cause
Speculation surrounding the existence of the flight data recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), colloquially known as the "black boxes" (but actually of orange color) followed the discovery of the plane's remains, as there is no certainty as to whether the plane carried both or either device. In this line, the DAC stated that no black boxes were aboard the aircraft; however, Patricio Mosquera, a former SAETA Viscount pilot who flew HC-ARS the day before its crash [6] and later led SAETA's own search for the plane,[7] declared that it carried at least (possibly) the FDR, which he claimed was mandated by DAC back in 1976. However, Mosquera was not sure whether the Viscount carried the CVR, claiming a long time had elapsed and did not remember it.[6]
Still, the opinion that at least either of the two devices was onboard was echoed by Carlos Serrano, former vice-president of SAETA, who claimed that when HC-ARS and its twin HC-AVP, were bought from Alitalia in the early 1970s, they carried both devices.[6] In a tragic twist, HC-AVP also crashed in high ground flying the same Quito-Cuenca route (as Flight 011) on 23 April 1979, but its wreckage was only found 5 years later in the Amazonian jungle province of Pastaza, 25 miles off course its original path and killing the five crew and 52 passengers.[8][9]
In the end, the victims' families' agreement to declare the Flight 232 crash site a holy field meant that, aside from ending the search for human remains and aircraft debris, DAC pursued no official investigation of the tragedy and that neither the organization nor the Attorney's Office of Riobamba would search for it.[6] Consequently, the cause of the crash is not known.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1976.
Aer Lingus Flight 712 crashed en route from Cork to London on 24 March 1968, killing all 61 passengers and crew. The aircraft, a Vickers Viscount 803 named St. Phelim, crashed into the sea off Tuskar Rock, County Wexford. Although the investigation into the crash lasted two years, a cause was never determined. Causes proposed in several investigative reports include possible impact with birds, a missile or target drone, or mechanical and structural failures.
Jaime Roldós Aguilera was 33rd President of Ecuador from August 10, 1979 until his death on May 24, 1981. In his short tenure, he became known for his firm stance on human rights, which led to clashes with other Latin American governments and poor relations with Ronald Reagan's United States administration.
On March 12, 1948, Northwest Airlines Flight 4422 (NC95422) crashed into Mount Sanford, Alaska, with a crew of six and 24 passengers. The flight was a C-54 charter flying back to the United States from Shanghai. The aircraft refueled at Anchorage and took off at 8:12 P.M. to continue on to its destination, New York City. Instead of following the published airway, which detoured around Mount Sanford, the aircraft flew a direct line, crashing into the mountain. After the initial impact the wreckage slid down for about 3000 feet before coming to rest. There were no survivors. The passengers were American merchant mariners, crew members of the tanker SS Sunset, being ferried back home.
SAETA Air Ecuador was a privately held airline of Ecuador, which was founded in 1966. During its heyday in the 1990s, it flew to numerous destinations in North and South America from its base in Guayaquil.
BOAC Flight 781 (BA781/BOA781) was a scheduled British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) passenger flight from Singapore to London. On 10 January 1954, a de Havilland Comet passenger jet operating the flight suffered an explosive decompression at altitude and crashed, killing all 35 people on board.
Progress Multi Trade Air Flight 241 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Siem Reap to Sihanoukville, Cambodia. The flight was operated by regional airliner PMTair using an Antonov An-24. On 25 June 2007, the Antonov An-24, registered as XU-U4A, disappeared over the Cambodian jungle near Bokor Mountain in Kampot while on approach to Sihanoukville. A massive search and rescue operation ensued with thousands of soldiers and police scoured the area. The aircraft was found to have crashed in southwestern Cambodia, northeast of Dâmrei Mountains. All 22 people on board, most of whom were South Korean tourists, were killed. It remains as the second deadliest air disaster in Cambodian history.
Santa Bárbara Airlines Flight 518 was an ATR 42–300 twin-turboprop aircraft, registration YV1449, operating as a scheduled domestic flight from Mérida, Venezuela, to Caracas that crashed into the side of a mountain on 21 February 2008, shortly after take-off. There were 43 passengers on board, with a crew consisting of two pilots and a flight attendant. The wreckage was discovered a day later with no survivors. It was the deadliest aviation accident involving an ATR 42 until Trigana Air Flight 267 crashed in Papua, Indonesia, in 2015 with 54 deaths.
Mariscal Lamar International Airport is a high elevation airport serving Cuenca, the capital of the Azuay Province in Ecuador. It is named after the Peruvian military leader and politician José de la Mar, a native of Cuenca.
SAN was an airline which was based in Guayaquil, Ecuador that was the domestic branch of the airline SAETA. It was founded in 1964, and ceased operations in 1999.
The 1983 TAME Boeing 737 crash occurred when A Boeing 737-200, operated by Ecuador's national airline TAME, flying on a domestic route from the now-closed Mariscal Sucre International Airport in Quito to Mariscal Lamar International Airport in Cuenca, crashed into a hill during final approach just 1 mile from its final destination, killing all 119 people on board.
AIRES Flight 8250 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that on 16 August 2010 crashed on landing at night in poor weather on the Colombian island of San Andrés, killing two of the 131 people on board. The aircraft, an AIRES-operated Boeing 737-700, was arriving from the Colombian capital Bogotá when it heavily touched down short of the runway, breaking up in three sections.
On 10 November 1971, a Merpati Nusantara Airlines Vickers Viscount, registration PK-MVS, crashed in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, after telling air traffic controllers they could not make their destination due to bad weather. All 69 people aboard the aircraft were killed in the crash. It remains the third worst Vickers Viscount accident.
On 6 September 2011, Aerocon Flight 238, a Fairchild Metro III regional passenger aircraft on a service from Santa Cruz de la Sierra to Trinidad, Bolivia, crashed on approach to Trinidad, killing eight of the nine people on board.
The 1952 Mount Gannett C-124 crash was an accident in which a Douglas C-124 Globemaster II military transport aircraft of the United States Air Force crashed into Mount Gannett, a peak in the Chugach Mountains in the American state of Alaska, on November 22, 1952. All of the 52 people on board were killed.
Tara Air Flight 193 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Pokhara to Jomsom, Nepal. On 24 February 2016, eight minutes after take-off, the aircraft serving the flight, a Viking Air DHC-6-400 Twin Otter went missing with 23 people on board. Hours later, the wreckage was found near the village of Dana, Myagdi District. There were no survivors. It was Tara Air's deadliest accident.
On 15 March 2016, an IAI Arava transport aircraft of the Ecuadorian Army crashed in the eastern part of the country. The accident is the deadliest involving an IAI Arava, and the single deadliest incident suffered by the Ecuadorian military.
On 4 August 2018, a de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver aircraft operated by K2 Aviation crashed in poor weather near Denali, Alaska, United States. All five people on board survived the crash, but died before rescuers were able to arrive at the scene. The five people consisted of the pilot and four Polish tourists.
On 23 April 1979, SAETA Flight 011, a Vickers Viscount passenger aircraft of Ecuadorian airline SAETA, crashed in a mountainous region of Pastaza Province, Ecuador, killing all 57 people on board. The wreckage of the aircraft was not found until five years later.
↑ "Ministro de Defensa y Galo Arrieta"[Minister of Defense and Galo Arrieta]. El Universo (in Spanish). 21 February 2003. Archived from the original on 10 April 2023. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
