Aeropostal Alas de Venezuela Flight 108 was a short-haul flight from La Chinita International Airport in Maracaibo, Venezuela to Santa Barbara Ed-L Delicias Airport that crashed on March 5, 1991.

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Aeropostal Alas de Venezuela Flight 108

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
Occupants	45
Passengers	40
Crew	5
Fatalities	45
Survivors	0

Aircraft

The aircraft used on Flight 108 was a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, which has been in service with Aeropostal for 14 years; the aircraft was manufactured in 1976.[1][2]

The "Guillotine of Los Andes"

The Páramo "Los Torres" is known among Venezuelan pilots as The Guillotine ("Russian roulette") 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.[3]

Accident

Flight 108 took off from La Chinita International Airport 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.[1]

Cause

An 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.[4][5]

In popular culture

On February 23, 2008, Globovisón briefly mentioned the accident while covering a report on Santa Bárbara Airlines Flight 518.[6]

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.[7]

References

External links

• HISTORIA ACCIDENTES AEREOS VENEZUELA on YouTube
• ACCIDENTE AEROPOSTAL SANTA BARBARA1991 ARJONAVISION1 HD on YouTube

На других языках

[de] Aeropostal-Flug 109