SAETA Flight 011 (1976)
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|
 The aircraft involved in the incident | |
| Accident | |
|---|---|
| Date | 15 August 1976 |
| Summary | Suspected hijack |
| Site | Chimborazo |
| Aircraft type | Vickers Viscount 785D |
| Operator | SAETA |
| Registration | HC-ARS |
| Flight origin | Quito, Ecuador |
| Destination | Cuenca, Ecuador |
| Passengers | 55 |
| Crew | 4 |
| Fatalities | 59 |
| Survivors | 0 |
On 15 August 1976, SAETA Flight 232 en route from Quito, Ecuador, to Cuenca was reported missing while in flight. The SAETA-operated Vickers Viscount 785D carried 55 passengers and 4 crew members.
Searches of the possible crash area produced no results. A mid-route crash on the stratovolcano Chimborazo was considered to be most probable, though some speculated a guerrilla hijacking.[1]
The plane was eventually found at 5,310m in October 2002 by two members of the Nuevos Horizontes mountaineering club, Pablo Chiquiza and Flavio Armas, while exploring a new route to the summit of Chimborazo via the Garcia Moreno Glacier. However, they did not report it immediately. The discovery wasn't confirmed until February 2003, when a team hired by the television station Teleamazonas went up to film a video of the wreckage, and found human remains, newspapers from the day the plane disappeared and identification cards of known passengers.[2][3][4]
References
- ^ UPI (12 September 1976). "After a month, plane still missing". Ellensburg Daily Record. Quito, Ecuador. p. 5.
- ^ Associated Press (19 February 2003). "Plane crash's frozen victims found 27 years later". The Sydney Morning Herald.
- ^ "Restos de 59 víctimas de accidente de avión descansarán entre la nieve". www.cronica.com.mx (in Mexican Spanish). Retrieved 11 September 2017.
- ^ "Se confirma que hallazgo de avión fue el año pasado" (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 May 2018.
External links
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