Saturday, March 17, 2012

Incident of the week #9

Sometimes a flight is shorter than expected.
This happened this week, on a Convair CV-340 cargo flight from San Juan (Puerto Rico) to Saint Maarten (Dutch Antilles) operated by Jet One Express. The vintage cargo plane (manufactured in 1953) was loaded with 5.5 tons (12,000 lbs) of bread and only one passenger was traveling with both pilots. This was a usual trip for that crew, the plane would make about 15 trips a week to deliver bread and similar goods to several Caribbean islands. Shortly after take-off, the crew declared emergency and reported engines trouble. They requested an immediate return because smoke was coming from one of the engines. Although Air Traffic Control immediately cleared the aircraft to land, they didn´t manage to reach the runway anymore, and impacted lagoon La Torrecilla just east of the airport, killing all three on board. The aircraft wreckage with all three occupants, the captain being the owner of the airline, was located at the bottom of the lake, sank in about 10-15 meters (30-50 feet). Divers are still working to free the bodies from the wreckage.

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