Aerosucre Flight 157
Aerosucre Flight 157 was a domestic cargo flight operated by Colombian cargo airline Aerosucre using a Boeing 727-200. On 20 December 2016, the aircraft crashed shortly after taking off from Germán Olano Airport in Puerto Carreño, Colombia, on a flight to Bogotá. The jet overran the end of the runway, struck the perimeter fence and other obstacles before becoming airborne, but lost control and crashed about two minutes later and from the airport. Of the six people on board, only one survived. The subsequent investigation found that a number of factors, including a take-off weight  in excess of the maximum permissible, an incorrect take-off technique and a slight tailwind resulted in the failure of the aircraft to become airborne within the available runway length. Accident. The Boeing 727 arrived at Puerto Carreño on the day of the accident at 14:48 local time, after a cargo flight from Bogotá. The crew unloaded of cargo. Although the weight and balance manifest of the accident flight was not found, investigators presumed that slightly less than of cargo distributed on nine pallets was loaded for the return to Bogotá. The 727 then taxied onto Runway 25 threshold; the  crew set the flaps at 30 degrees, the plane was trimmed for takeoff, and the plane started its takeoff run at 17:18. The 727 used all of the runway, but was still not airborne. It traveled another over grass and struck a perimeter fence. It then crossed a road on the airport's perimeter, where numerous motorcyclists and pedestrians narrowly avoided being hit by the aircraft. After crossing the road, the 727 then collided with a shed, then a tree, before finally becoming airborne. Due to the impact, the right main landing gear detached from the aircraft, the inboard right  flap was damaged, engine 3 lost power, and one hydraulic system was damaged and leaking. The aircraft achieved an altitude of , entered a slight right hand descending turn which completed a near 270-degree arc and then impacted flat terrain, bursting into flames. The accident was captured on video by some of the motorcyclists on the perimeter road the aircraft crossed. Aircraft and crew. The aircraft involved in the crash was a Boeing 727-200 registered HK-4544 with serial number 21105. It entered service in 1975, operating as a passenger aircraft for Air Jamaica until 1997. It was then converted  into a cargo aircraft. The aircraft began operating for Aerosucre in 2008. The captain was 58-year-old Jaime Cantillo, who had been with Aerosucre since 1997 and was licensed to fly the Boeing 727 in 2005. He had logged 8,708 flight hours, including 6,822 hours on the Boeing 727. The first officer was 39-year-old Mauricio Guzmán, who had been with the airline since 2008 and had 3,285 flight hours, all of which were on the Boeing 727. The flight engineer was 72-year-old Pedro Duarte, who joined Aerosucre in 2013 and had logged 1,612 flight hours , though his flight experience on the Boeing 727 was unknown. Victims. The flight plan indicated five people aboard, but there was an undocumented sixth person on the flight. Four died immediately and two survived the impact, but one of the survivors died later from injuries. The sole survivor was flight technician Diego Armando Vargas Bravo. Investigation. The Colombian government's Air Accident Investigation Group (Grupo de Investigación de Accidentes Aéreos; GRIAA) concluded that three factors extended the aircraft’s take-off run by , resulting in a runway excursion that eventually led to the crash: Furthermore, although initial calculations suggested the  aircraft was operating within its weight limits, the investigators believe, based on the take-off speeds used by the crew, that the aircraft was actually almost a tonne above its maximum permissible take-off weight of . The investigation also determined that following the loss of pressure in both main hydraulic systems caused by the impact with ground structures, the crew did not activate the standby hydraulic system, which would have enabled them to maintain control of the aircraft. The operator Aerosucre was found in breach of regulations, since Puerto Carreño airport was not approved for operations with the Boeing 727 -200, and such breach was allowed to continue for years due to lack of supervision by the Colombian civil aviation authority.