Aeropostal Alas de Venezuela Flight 108
Aeropostal Alas de Venezuela Flight 108 took off from La Chinita International Airport in Maracaibo, Venezuela, on March 5, 1991, on a short-haul flight to Santa Barbara Ed-L Delicias Airport in Venezuela with 45 passengers and crew. Several minutes later, the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 crashed on the side of a foggy mountain near La Valesa in the La Aguada sector of the Páramo Los Torres and burst into flames. All 45 people on board died.
%3B_YV-37C%40PMV%3B10.10.2001_(8232561272).jpg) An Aeropostal McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 similar to the one involved. | |
| Accident | |
|---|---|
| Date | March 5, 1991 |
| Summary | Pilot error |
| Site | near La Valesa, Venezuela |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 |
| Operator | Aeropostal Alas de Venezuela |
| Registration | YV-23C |
| Flight origin | La Chinita International Airport, Maracaibo, Venezuela |
| Destination | Santa Barbara Ed-L Delicias Airport, Venezuela |
| Passengers | 40 |
| Crew | 5 |
| Fatalities | 45 |
| Survivors | 0 |
Aircraft
The aircraft used on Flight 108 was a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, which by 1991 had been in service with Aeropostal for 24 years; the airline had bought the plane from McDonnell Douglas in 1967.
The "Guillotine of Los Andes"
The Páramo "Los Torres" is known among Venezuelan pilots as The Guillotine of Los Andes. Prior to Flight 108, two other commercial aircraft had crashed. On December 15, 1950, an Avensa Douglas DC-3 flying from Mérida to Caracas crashed, killing all 28 passengers and 3 crew. Ten years later, on December 15, 1960, a Ransa flight crashed, killing all of its passengers.
Cause
A investigation into the accident found that the cause of the crash was pilot error. The pilots inadvertently entered the wrong radial into their navigation system and went off course. Because of fog in the area, the pilots did not know they were on a collision course with the mountain.
Similarities with Santa Barbara Airlines Flight 518
On February 21, 2008, Santa Bárbara Airlines Flight 518, an ATR 42, crashed into the "Los Conejos" moor, several minutes after taking off from Alberto Carnevalli Airport in Mérida. 43 passengers and three crew members were killed in the accident. The remains of the aircraft were found the following day in a mountain range approximately 10 kilometers northeast of Mérida at an altitude of 12,000 feet (3,700 m). No survivors were found. After the accident, the company started a new public relations program and rebranded SBA Airlines. Like Flight 108, Santa Bárbara Airlines Flight 518 did not have accurate information of the route it was flying.