Avianca Flight 52
Encyclopedia
Avianca Flight 52 was a regularly scheduled flight from Bogotá
to New York
via Medellín, Colombia
. On Thursday, January 25, 1990, the aircraft performing this flight, a Boeing 707-321B
registered as HK-2016, crashed into the village of Cove Neck, Long Island
, New York after running out of fuel. Eight of the nine crew members and 65 of the 149 passengers on board were killed.
707 started its journey in Bogotá, stopping in Medellin
at 2:04 pm after flying for half an hour. It then took off at 3:08 pm, a few minutes later than planned.
The flight crew included pilot Laureano Caviedes, first officer Mauricio Klotz and flight engineer Matias Moyano. The flight crew did not change at Medellin.
off the coast near New York
for over one hour due to fog and wind interfering with smooth arrivals and departures into John F. Kennedy International Airport. During this hold the aircraft was exhausting its reserve fuel supply, which would have allowed it to divert to its alternate, Boston, in case of an emergency or other critical situation.
When first put on hold, the crew of Flight 52 thought that they would be landing soon, after a few aircraft also on hold in front of them had landed. The bad weather, wind shear and other factors caused the pilots of these aircraft to abort their landings, and the hold time increased.
Seventy-seven minutes after entering the hold, New York air traffic control
(ATC) asked the crew how long they could continue to hold, to which the first officer replied, "[A]bout five minutes." The first officer then stated that their alternate was Boston, but since they had been holding for so long they would not be able to make it there anymore. Even though Flight 52 had fuel issues, ATC passed the flight to another person, presumably unaware there was any urgency to landing this airplane. The delay of the handover may have increased the pilots' stress and fear response, which may have led to less than optimal piloting. The new controller then cleared the aircraft for an approach to runway 22L and informed the flight of wind shear at 1500 feet (457.2 m).
As Flight 52 flew the ILS
approach, they encountered wind shear
at an altitude of less than 500 feet (152.4 m). As a result, the plane descended below the planned glideslope and almost crashed into the ground short of the runway. The pilots were forced to abandon the landing, even though they knew the plane did not have enough fuel to turn around for another attempt. The crew alerted the controller that they were low on fuel, and in a subsequent transmission stated, "We're running out of fuel, sir." The controller then asked the crew to climb, to which the first officer replied, "No, sir, we're running out of fuel."
Moments later, with the airplane still very close to the ground, the number four engine flamed out
, shortly followed by the other three. With the aircraft's main source of electrical power—generators driven off its engines—now gone, automatic load shedding would have caused many nonessential electrical systems to lose power. The cabin thus would have been plunged into darkness. With no engine thrust, the plane lost height. It plunged into the small village of Cove Neck
on northern Long Island
in Oyster Bay
, 15 miles (24.1 km) from the airport.
The aircraft struck the ground and slid down a hill in the town, splitting into two pieces as it reached the bottom. The impact snapped off the cockpit, which landed over 100 feet (30.5 m) away in the side of an unoccupied house. Eighty-five people survived the crash with injuries, while 73 passengers and crew died.
, selecting the most critically injured passengers for transport to area hospitals. But so many other ambulances had arrived that a traffic jam developed, and some rigs were unable to leave the site immediately. Ambulatory passengers walked to other ambulances and arrived at hospitals sooner than critically injured ones.
The senior flight attendant, who sustained serious injuries, was the sole surviving crew member of the disaster.
The adult passengers on the Medellin-New York segment consisted of 61 males and 61 females. Sixteen children between 3 and 15 years of age, including 8 males and 8 females, flew on this segment.
Of the 11 babies (8 males and 3 females, ages ranging from 4 months to 27 months) on the Medellin-New York flight, 10 survived.
Of the surviving passengers, 80 suffered serious injuries and 4 sustained minor injuries. Of the passengers indicated by the NTSB
map to have been assigned to first class (Rows 4 and 5), one survived. The NTSB stated that as the airline did not assign all of the filled seats and that some passengers relocated to other seats after boarding, the NTSB could not determine the injuries in relation to precise seating arrangements.
due to the crew never declaring a fuel emergency
to air traffic control as per International Air Transport Association
(IATA) guidelines. The crew asked for a "priority" landing which, because of language differences between English and Spanish, can be interpreted as an emergency to Spanish-speaking pilots but not to English-speaking air traffic controllers. This may have caused some confusion amongst the pilots when ATC confirmed their priority status. Some NTSB board members felt that ATC was negligent in not providing arriving aircraft with the latest wind shear
information, which could alert the crew to possible difficulties in landing. Avianca Airlines sued the Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) for the actions of the air traffic controllers, whom they felt were negligent in misunderstanding the pilots' reports. The FAA countered, stating that the crew never declared a fuel emergency until the final minutes before the crash and had never reported the amount of fuel they had left when asking for a priority landing, making it impossible for air traffic controllers to give them correct priority status.
Further from the NTSB report: "There was no flight following or interaction with the Avianca Airlines dispatcher for AVA052 following takeoff from Medellin
...Contributing to the accident was the flight crew's failure to use an airline operational control dispatch system to assist them during the international flight into a high-density airport
in poor weather." This accident, along with Hapag-Lloyd Airlines Flight 3378
, has been used as an example of why airlines in different countries should always have proactive flight following by flight dispatcher
s, as required in the U.S. by Federal Aviation Regulations
(FAR) Part 121.
Many passengers were upset when the FAA stated that it had no responsibility in covering the crash.
Following Flight 52, air traffic controllers were more conservative in determining if Avianca flights were running low on fuel and required priority landing. On June 22, 1990, a Boeing 727
was immediately cleared to land when the pilot declared a minimum fuel situation. In another instance, on August 4, 1990, controllers declared a fuel emergency for the pilot due to confusion over the remaining fuel. The jet landed with 2 more flying hours to spare.
show Mayday
(known as Air Emergency in the US, Mayday in Ireland and Air Crash Investigation in the UK and the rest of world). The episode was the fifth of the second season and is entitled "Deadly Delay" or "Missing Over New York" depending on the country in which it is airing.
In Malcolm Gladwell
's book Outliers
, the crash of Flight 52 was discussed in a section on different ethnic groups responses to authority figures.
, stock footage of the plane wreckage was utilized to represent a plane that supposedly crashed due to turbulence.
Bogotá
Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...
to New York
John F. Kennedy International Airport
John F. Kennedy International Airport is an international airport located in the borough of Queens in New York City, about southeast of Lower Manhattan. It is the busiest international air passenger gateway to the United States, handling more international traffic than any other airport in North...
via Medellín, Colombia
José María Córdova International Airport
José María Córdova International Airport is the main airport serving the Colombian city of Medellín and its surrounding metropolitan area. The airport is located about 30 minutes from the urban area by the new Las Palmas express way, in the municipality of Rionegro...
. On Thursday, January 25, 1990, the aircraft performing this flight, a Boeing 707-321B
Boeing 707
The Boeing 707 is a four-engine narrow-body commercial passenger jet airliner developed by Boeing in the early 1950s. Its name is most commonly pronounced as "Seven Oh Seven". The first airline to operate the 707 was Pan American World Airways, inaugurating the type's first commercial flight on...
registered as HK-2016, crashed into the village of Cove Neck, Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
, New York after running out of fuel. Eight of the nine crew members and 65 of the 149 passengers on board were killed.
History
The 23-year-old BoeingBoeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
707 started its journey in Bogotá, stopping in Medellin
Medellín
Medellín , officially the Municipio de Medellín or Municipality of Medellín, is the second largest city in Colombia. It is in the Aburrá Valley, one of the more northerly of the Andes in South America. It has a population of 2.3 million...
at 2:04 pm after flying for half an hour. It then took off at 3:08 pm, a few minutes later than planned.
The flight crew included pilot Laureano Caviedes, first officer Mauricio Klotz and flight engineer Matias Moyano. The flight crew did not change at Medellin.
Flight history
On January 25, 1990, Avianca Flight 52 was much delayed in approaching its destination due to congestion and bad weather. It had been in a holding patternHolding (aviation)
In aviation, holding is a maneuver designed to delay an aircraft already in flight while keeping it within a specified airspace.-Implementation:...
off the coast near New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
for over one hour due to fog and wind interfering with smooth arrivals and departures into John F. Kennedy International Airport. During this hold the aircraft was exhausting its reserve fuel supply, which would have allowed it to divert to its alternate, Boston, in case of an emergency or other critical situation.
When first put on hold, the crew of Flight 52 thought that they would be landing soon, after a few aircraft also on hold in front of them had landed. The bad weather, wind shear and other factors caused the pilots of these aircraft to abort their landings, and the hold time increased.
Seventy-seven minutes after entering the hold, New York air traffic control
Air traffic control
Air traffic control is a service provided by ground-based controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and in the air. The primary purpose of ATC systems worldwide is to separate aircraft to prevent collisions, to organize and expedite the flow of traffic, and to provide information and other...
(ATC) asked the crew how long they could continue to hold, to which the first officer replied, "[A]bout five minutes." The first officer then stated that their alternate was Boston, but since they had been holding for so long they would not be able to make it there anymore. Even though Flight 52 had fuel issues, ATC passed the flight to another person, presumably unaware there was any urgency to landing this airplane. The delay of the handover may have increased the pilots' stress and fear response, which may have led to less than optimal piloting. The new controller then cleared the aircraft for an approach to runway 22L and informed the flight of wind shear at 1500 feet (457.2 m).
As Flight 52 flew the ILS
Instrument Landing System
An instrument landing system is a ground-based instrument approach system that provides precision guidance to an aircraft approaching and landing on a runway, using a combination of radio signals and, in many cases, high-intensity lighting arrays to enable a safe landing during instrument...
approach, they encountered wind shear
Wind shear
Wind shear, sometimes referred to as windshear or wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere...
at an altitude of less than 500 feet (152.4 m). As a result, the plane descended below the planned glideslope and almost crashed into the ground short of the runway. The pilots were forced to abandon the landing, even though they knew the plane did not have enough fuel to turn around for another attempt. The crew alerted the controller that they were low on fuel, and in a subsequent transmission stated, "We're running out of fuel, sir." The controller then asked the crew to climb, to which the first officer replied, "No, sir, we're running out of fuel."
Moments later, with the airplane still very close to the ground, the number four engine flamed out
Flameout
A flameout refers to the failure of a jet engine caused by the extinction of the flame in the combustion chamber. It can be caused by a number of factors, including fuel exhaustion; compressor stall; insufficient oxygen supply; foreign object damage ; severe inclement weather; and mechanical...
, shortly followed by the other three. With the aircraft's main source of electrical power—generators driven off its engines—now gone, automatic load shedding would have caused many nonessential electrical systems to lose power. The cabin thus would have been plunged into darkness. With no engine thrust, the plane lost height. It plunged into the small village of Cove Neck
Cove Neck, New York
The Village of Cove Neck is a village located within the town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, New York, United States. The population was 286 at the 2010 census.-History:...
on northern Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
in Oyster Bay
Oyster Bay (town), New York
The Town of Oyster Bay is easternmost of the three towns in Nassau County, New York, in the United States. Part of the New York metropolitan area, it is the only town in Nassau County that extends from the North Shore to the South Shore of Long Island. As of the 2010 census, the town population was...
, 15 miles (24.1 km) from the airport.
The aircraft struck the ground and slid down a hill in the town, splitting into two pieces as it reached the bottom. The impact snapped off the cockpit, which landed over 100 feet (30.5 m) away in the side of an unoccupied house. Eighty-five people survived the crash with injuries, while 73 passengers and crew died.
Emergency response
The recovery efforts for Flight 52 proved to be difficult since the aircraft had crashed into the hilly, sparsely populated North Shore, making it difficult for emergency crews to reach. This was compounded by the narrow, winding roads that lead into the hamlet. Rescue squads from all over Long Island responded to the crash. The weather conditions and the darkness of night made the search crews' task even more challenging. The first ambulances to arrive performed triageTriage
Triage or ) is the process of determining the priority of patients' treatments based on the severity of their condition. This rations patient treatment efficiently when resources are insufficient for all to be treated immediately. The term comes from the French verb trier, meaning to separate,...
, selecting the most critically injured passengers for transport to area hospitals. But so many other ambulances had arrived that a traffic jam developed, and some rigs were unable to leave the site immediately. Ambulatory passengers walked to other ambulances and arrived at hospitals sooner than critically injured ones.
Passengers and injuries
The adult passengers on the Medellin-New York segment consisted of 61 males and 61 females. Sixteen children between 3 and 15 years of age, including 8 males and 8 females, flew on this segment.
Of the 11 babies (8 males and 3 females, ages ranging from 4 months to 27 months) on the Medellin-New York flight, 10 survived.
Of the surviving passengers, 80 suffered serious injuries and 4 sustained minor injuries. Of the passengers indicated by the NTSB
National Transportation Safety Board
The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incidents, certain types of highway crashes, ship and marine...
map to have been assigned to first class (Rows 4 and 5), one survived. The NTSB stated that as the airline did not assign all of the filled seats and that some passengers relocated to other seats after boarding, the NTSB could not determine the injuries in relation to precise seating arrangements.
Cause and investigation
The NTSB's report on the accident determined the cause as pilot errorPilot error
Pilot error is a term used to describe the cause of an accident involving an airworthy aircraft where the pilot is considered to be principally or partially responsible...
due to the crew never declaring a fuel emergency
Emergency
An emergency is a situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property or environment. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening of the situation, although in some situations, mitigation may not be possible and agencies may only be able to offer palliative...
to air traffic control as per International Air Transport Association
International Air Transport Association
The International Air Transport Association is an international industry trade group of airlines headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where the International Civil Aviation Organization is also headquartered. The executive offices are at the Geneva Airport in SwitzerlandIATA's mission is to...
(IATA) guidelines. The crew asked for a "priority" landing which, because of language differences between English and Spanish, can be interpreted as an emergency to Spanish-speaking pilots but not to English-speaking air traffic controllers. This may have caused some confusion amongst the pilots when ATC confirmed their priority status. Some NTSB board members felt that ATC was negligent in not providing arriving aircraft with the latest wind shear
Wind shear
Wind shear, sometimes referred to as windshear or wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere...
information, which could alert the crew to possible difficulties in landing. Avianca Airlines sued the Federal Aviation Administration
Federal Aviation Administration
The Federal Aviation Administration is the national aviation authority of the United States. An agency of the United States Department of Transportation, it has authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the U.S...
(FAA) for the actions of the air traffic controllers, whom they felt were negligent in misunderstanding the pilots' reports. The FAA countered, stating that the crew never declared a fuel emergency until the final minutes before the crash and had never reported the amount of fuel they had left when asking for a priority landing, making it impossible for air traffic controllers to give them correct priority status.
Further from the NTSB report: "There was no flight following or interaction with the Avianca Airlines dispatcher for AVA052 following takeoff from Medellin
Medellín
Medellín , officially the Municipio de Medellín or Municipality of Medellín, is the second largest city in Colombia. It is in the Aburrá Valley, one of the more northerly of the Andes in South America. It has a population of 2.3 million...
...Contributing to the accident was the flight crew's failure to use an airline operational control dispatch system to assist them during the international flight into a high-density airport
Airport
An airport is a location where aircraft such as fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and blimps take off and land. Aircraft may be stored or maintained at an airport...
in poor weather." This accident, along with Hapag-Lloyd Airlines Flight 3378
Hapag-Lloyd Flight 3378
Hapag-Lloyd Flight 3378 , registered as D-AHLB, was a commercial Hapag-Lloyd Airlines Airbus A310-304 flight, on 12 July 2000. It was carrying 142 passengers and 8 crew members from Chania, Greece to Hanover, Germany....
, has been used as an example of why airlines in different countries should always have proactive flight following by flight dispatcher
Dispatcher
Dispatchers are communications personnel responsible for receiving and transmitting pure and reliable messages, tracking vehicles and equipment, and recording other important information...
s, as required in the U.S. by Federal Aviation Regulations
Federal Aviation Regulations
The Federal Aviation Regulations, or FARs, are rules prescribed by the Federal Aviation Administration governing all aviation activities in the United States. The FARs are part of Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations...
(FAR) Part 121.
Many passengers were upset when the FAA stated that it had no responsibility in covering the crash.
Aftermath
After some deliberations, a settlement was reached in which the United States paid for around 40% of the settlements with the passengers and their families; the rest was paid by Avianca.Following Flight 52, air traffic controllers were more conservative in determining if Avianca flights were running low on fuel and required priority landing. On June 22, 1990, a Boeing 727
Boeing 727
The Boeing 727 is a mid-size, narrow-body, three-engine, T-tailed commercial jet airliner, manufactured by Boeing. The Boeing 727 first flew in 1963, and for over a decade more were built per year than any other jet airliner. When production ended in 1984 a total of 1,832 aircraft had been produced...
was immediately cleared to land when the pilot declared a minimum fuel situation. In another instance, on August 4, 1990, controllers declared a fuel emergency for the pilot due to confusion over the remaining fuel. The jet landed with 2 more flying hours to spare.
Dramatization
The story of the disaster was featured on the second season of Canadian National Geographic ChannelNational Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel, also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo, is a subscription television channel that airs non-fiction television programs produced by the National Geographic Society. Like History and the Discovery Channel, the channel features documentaries with factual...
show Mayday
Mayday (TV series)
Mayday, also known as Air Crash Investigation in the United Kingdom, Australia and Asia and Air Emergency and Air Disasters in the United States, is a Canadian documentary television programme produced by Cineflix investigating air crashes, near-crashes and other disasters...
(known as Air Emergency in the US, Mayday in Ireland and Air Crash Investigation in the UK and the rest of world). The episode was the fifth of the second season and is entitled "Deadly Delay" or "Missing Over New York" depending on the country in which it is airing.
In Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell, CM is a Canadian journalist, bestselling author, and speaker. He is currently based in New York City and has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996...
's book Outliers
Outliers (book)
Outliers: The Story of Success is a non-fiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown and Company on November 18, 2008. In Outliers, Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success...
, the crash of Flight 52 was discussed in a section on different ethnic groups responses to authority figures.
In popular culture
In the 2004 film The Day After TomorrowThe Day After Tomorrow
The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science-fiction disaster film that depicts the catastrophic effects of global warming in a series of extreme weather events that usher in global cooling which leads to a new ice age. The film did well at the box office, grossing $542,771,772 internationally...
, stock footage of the plane wreckage was utilized to represent a plane that supposedly crashed due to turbulence.
See also
- List of airline flights that required gliding
- Air Canada Flight 143