TAN-SAHSA Flight 414 was a scheduled flight from Juan Santamaría International Airport, San José, Costa Rica to Toncontín Airport in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, with a stopover at Augusto C. Sandino Airport in Managua, Nicaragua on 21 October 1989.[1] Flown with a Boeing 727-200, the flight crashed into a hill of the mountain range after the pilots failed to follow a special landing procedure required for the arrival to the airport, killing 131 passengers, leaving 15 survivors (including all three pilots). 20 initially survived, but five died before treatment, due to a delay in rescue personnel from the bad weather.[2]

TAN-SAHSA Flight 414

N88705, the aircraft involved in the accident, at Miami International Airport in 1989
Accident
Date	21 October 1989
Summary	Pilot error and possible criminal negligence
Site	9 km (5.6 mi; 4.9 nmi) south of Cerro de Hula, Tegucigalpa, Honduras 13°56′43″N 87°14′27″W
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Boeing 727-224
Operator	TAN-SAHSA
Registration	N88705
Flight origin	Juan Santamaría International Airport, San José, Costa Rica
Stopover	Augusto C. Sandino International Airport, Managua, Nicaragua
Destination	Toncontín International Airport, Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Occupants	146
Passengers	138
Crew	8
Fatalities	131
Injuries	15
Survivors	15 (20 initially)

Aircraft history

The aircraft was a Boeing 727-224, registered as N88705, leased from Continental Airlines, and first flown in 1968. It was delivered to TAN-SAHSA in 1981.[3]

Flight and accident

The crew of flight 414 consisted of 34-year-old Captain Raúl Argueta, 26-year-old First Officer Reiniero Canales and Flight Engineer Marco Figueroa, three employed at Tan-Sahsa.[4]^{[additional citation(s) needed]}

Tegucigalpa ATC cleared the flight for the VOR/DME approach to runway 01. Because of high terrain in the area, the approach uses a series of three step-downs from the initial approach fix of 7,500 feet (2,300 m) MSL.[3] The crew began a continuous descent from about 7,600 feet (2,300 m) MSL at about 11 nautical miles (13 mi; 20 km) from the airport, rather than following the prescribed step-down procedure, which led to the accident site.[3] The aircraft's descent profile was well below the published step-down course for the entire approach.[5] The aircraft impacted a mountain known as Cerro de Hula at the 4,800 feet (1,500 m) MSL elevation, approximately 800 feet (240 m) below the summit, 4.8 nautical miles (5.5 mi; 8.9 km) from the Tegucigalpa runway 01 threshold.[6] At impact, the aircraft was in approach configuration.[3]

The plane broke into three sections. The first part (cockpit, first class), contained almost all of the survivors of the accident,[7] due to the close-to-stall, nose high configuration at impact.

Aftermath

While the National Transportation Safety Board and the Civil Aviation Authority of Honduras were investigating the crash, Argueta, Canales and Figueroa were charged with manslaughter and negligence and went to trial. However, the case was never resolved.[8] Five months later another aircraft, an Lockheed L-188 Electra operated by Sahsa Carga registered as HR-TNL, crashed close to Flight 414's crash site, with a similar cause, making it the third accident by Sahsa in six months.[9] Due to its bad safety history and corruption, Tan-Sahsa went into bankruptcy in the 1990s, and ceased operations in 1994.^{[citation needed]}

References

External links

• Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network

На других языках

[de] TAN-Flug 414

[it] Volo Tan-Sahsa 414

[ru] Катастрофа Boeing 727 под Тегусигальпой