1987 Alianza Lima air disaster
Encyclopedia
The 1987 Alianza Lima air disaster took place on December 8, 1987, when a Peruvian Navy Fokker F27
-400M chartered by Peru
vian football club Alianza Lima
plunged into the Pacific Ocean
six miles short of its destination, off the Ventanilla District
of the city of Callao
. On board the flight were a total of 44 players, managers, staff, cheerleaders, and crewmembers, of whom only the pilot survived the accident. The team was returning from a Peruvian league match in Pucallpa
. Uncomfortable with the malfunctioning indicator on his control panel, the pilot requested a flyby of the control tower
at Lima
's Jorge Chávez International Airport
so that spotters on the ground could confirm that the plane's landing gear
was down and locked. Upon receiving visual confirmation of safe configuration for landing, the plane went around for another attempt at a landing. The Fokker flew too low and plunged into the Pacific.
Following the crash, the Peruvian Navy shut itself off from the press, and did not release the results of its investigation nor did it allow private investigations to take place. Allegations were made that the accident had been caused by the aircraft's shoddy mechanical condition, and the Navy concealed the truth in order to save face amidst the chaos the country was enduring at the hands of the Sendero Luminoso terrorist movement. It was not until 2006 that a Peruvian television program revealed that the results of the official inquiry into the cause of the disaster had been concealed by the Peruvian Navy. The investigation cited the pilot's lack of night flying experience, his misreading of the emergency procedures related to the landing gear issue, and the aircraft's poor mechanical condition as contributing factors to the accident.
A total of 43 players, managers, staff, cheerleaders, and crewmembers lost their lives in the accident; only the pilot survived. At the time, it was the eighth-worst accident in the history of Peruvian aviation. The Peruvian Football Federation chose not to end the football season early, despite the loss of what amounted to the majority of Alianza's team; the club played their last few matches with retired volunteers including Teófilo Cubillas
and César Cueto, players from its youth teams, and players loaned by Chile
an club Colo Colo. The accident was disastrous for Alianza, who lost their most promising squad in a decade, as well as that year's league title to crosstown rival Universitario de Deportes
.
(Servicio Aeronaval de la Marina del Peru) for the trip to Pucallpa and back. The aircraft was a Fokker F27-400M Friendship
, registration
AE-560, captained by Peruvian Navy Lieutenant Edilberto Villar. The aircraft, with serial number
10548, had first flown in 1977, and had logged a total of 5908 hours.
The aircraft, carrying sixteen footballers, five coaching staff, four directors, eight cheerleaders, three referees, two Navy personnel, and six crewmembers, took off from FAP Captain David Abenzur Rengifo International Airport in Pucallpa at 6:30 in the afternoon. As the pilots began their descent into Lima, they noticed that they could not confirm that the Fokker's landing gear was down and locked. The aircraft requested a flyby of the control tower at Jorge Chavez airport so that observers on the ground could confirm that the wheels were down. The observers confirmed that the airplane was configured for landing; at the aircraft mechanic's go-ahead, the pilot brought the aircraft around for another attempt at a landing. The aircraft flew too low to the water, and the right wing struck the surface of the ocean as the plane was lining up with the runway. The Fokker plunged into the water 6.9 miles (11 km) northwest of the airport. At 8:05 PM, the control tower lost contact with the aircraft. A state of emergency was declared, and search and rescue
were dispatched to the scene of the accident. Only one survivor, Lieutenant Villar, was recovered from the water.
Alianza Lima staff
Other passengers
and Alianza's Alejandro Villanueva Stadium
in the La Victoria district
of Lima. Over the next several days, the corpses were recovered from the sea. People attended dramatic mourning masses
, attended football matches played in honor of the fallen players, and participated in pilgrimage
s that started in the various barrio
s the players had hailed from, stopped at the club's stadium, and ended at Lima's General Cemetery. The team was said to have gone “de La Victoria a la gloria” (from Victory to glory) a pun on the team's home district. President Alan García, Cardinal
Juan Landázuri Ricketts
, and several state ministers attended various public grievances, with many declaring themselves to have been Aliancistas since childhood. The municipal government of La Victoria declared three days of mourning in the district, and ordered its decoration in Alianza's blue and white colors. Bobby Charlton
publicly announced his grief, having himself survived the Munich air disaster
of 1958, which claimed the lives of many of Manchester United's "Busby Babes
". Uruguay
an club Peñarol wore black mourning bands at the Intercontinental Cup
final, in a showing of solidarity with their fallen counterparts. Peruvian footballer Teófilo Cubillas
, who had retired the previous year, offered his services as a player to Alianza, and wore the jersey three weeks later when the championship resumed.
Shots were fired during encounters between the families of the deceased and the guards at the naval base where they appeared requesting news and explanations in the days after the accident. The Peruvian Navy sealed itself, making no statements regarding its role in the disaster. The bodies of Luis Escobar, Francisco Bustamante, Alfredo Tomasini, Gino Peña and William León were never recovered. There were rumors that player Tomasini had spent his last moments and spoken with the pilot, Villar, the only survivor; his family wished to hire a boat to aid in the search and recovery efforts, but the Navy did not allow it, closing off the accident area to all civilian traffic. In the midst of the difficult moment the country was experiencing due to the activities of the Sendero Luminoso terrorist group, the Navy's behavior led to rampant suspicion, which in turn brewed conspiracy theories.
The club members who died represented most of Alianza's
footballing strength at the time; the group of players were known collectively as Los Potrillos del '87 ("The Ponies of 1987"). Among the deceased was youth star Luis Escobar, the sensation of that year's tournament, who had debuted with the main team at age 14; he died at age 18. Players Francisco Bustamante and José Casanova, both in their twenties, played for the national team
. Also in their early twenties, forward Alfredo Tomasini, and defenders Daniel Reyes and Tomas Farfán, lost their lives in the accident. Marcos Calderón
, widely considered to be one of Peru's best coaches of all time, lost his life, as did José "el Caico" Gonzáles Ganoza, Alianza's starting keeper of 14 years. Alianza's squad was considered by the Peruvian sporting press to represent a sweeping renovation of Peruvian football. Alianza would continue to suffer during the next two decades, almost facing relegation in the year after the disaster; the team did not win a title until 1997, finally ending an 18-season drought prolonged by the loss of their star team.
, a member of the crew, and pilot Edilberto Villar. Villar declared that he escaped through a broken window and when he was swimming, he heard Tomassini was asking for help and he gave him a cylinder. He wrote in his report that Tomassini, who was an expert swimmer, showed apathy to keep swimming despite being tall and athletic. In his report, he never said that Tomassini was injured but later he told his lawyer another version in which the player had a fractured leg. By the time they were floating it was 8 p.m. and he knew that they had to resist until morning. The other survivor was a member of the crew who quit insulting the pilot then disappeared. The pilot said that the player drowned after three times that he got him out of the water. He said that he had to let him drown.
The fact that the aircraft that the team chartered for the trip was owned by the Peruvian Navy was seen as a sign of the economic weakness endured by the Peruvian military at the time, as well as the lack of organization felt throughout Peruvian football. State-owned aircraft were notorious for being in disrepair, and frequently crashed.
In 2006, Peruvian television program La Ventana Indiscreta announced that the Naval Aviation Commission charged with investigating the accident had concluded that Lieutenant Edilberto Villar's lack of night flying experience, his misreading of the emergency procedures, and the aircraft's poor mechanical condition to be contributing factors to the accident. According to reporter Cecilia Valenzuela, the complete official file containing the Commission's findings was illegally secreted away to the United States
by Navy Captain Edmundo Mercado Pérez, who presided over the investigation. The file remained locked in a Florida
bank vault for 19 years.
According to the findings, Lieutenant Villar had logged just 5.3 hours of night flying in the 90 days preceding the accident, 3.3 of them in the previous 60 days, and had not flown at night in at least 30 days before the crash. The copilot, First Lieutenant César Morales, had logged only one hour of night flying in the 90 days preceding the accident, half an hour in the preceding 60 days, and had also not flown at night in at least 30 days. Additionally, the F27's maintenance log, which was handed to the pilot before takeoff, showed a series of mechanical defects; Lieutenant Villar initially refused to fly the aircraft out of concern for its condition.
The report, dated February 1988, also showed that halfway through the flight from Pucallpa to Lima, the crew noted a possible malfunction of the landing gear. A cockpit indicator showed that the gear had not lowered, but CORPAC
officials at Lima checked with observers on the ground, who informed the pilot that he could land safely. Villar then ordered Morales to check the emergency gear lowering procedure in the manual; the relevant page was written in English
, which First Lieutenant Morales was not fluent in; he mistakenly instructed the pilot to follow step 1.3.1.7, which would flash a red indicator light, rather than step 1.4.3, which would display an orange light.
In a letter from the Fokker
aircraft company, dated October 16, 1986, the manufacturer noted that Lieutenant Villar had failed a special training course which could have prevented “his disorientation while operating under pressure, the excessive demand of work in a cabin”, but was granted permission to fly the aircraft regardless. Copilot César Morales had received no flight training from Fokker.
According to some sources, the flyby of the tower caused the Fokker's fuel reserves to become exhausted, and the aircraft ran out of fuel as it was repositioning for a second landing attempt.
Fokker F27
The Fokker F27 Friendship is a turboprop airliner designed and built by the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker.-Design and development:Design of the Fokker F27 started in the 1950s as a replacement to the successful Douglas DC-3 airliner...
-400M chartered by Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vian football club Alianza Lima
Alianza Lima
Club Alianza Lima is a Peruvian First Division football club who plays at the Estadio Alejandro Villanueva in the La Victoria District of Lima, Peru. They are one of the most famous and well supported clubs in the country and the oldest team in the Peruvian First Division.Alianza enjoyed success...
plunged into the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
six miles short of its destination, off the Ventanilla District
Ventanilla District
Ventanilla is a district of the Constitutional Province of Callao in Peru, and one of the six districts that comprise the port city of Callao. Covering more than half of the province's territory, it is Callao's largest district....
of the city of Callao
Callao
Callao is the largest and most important port in Peru. The city is coterminous with the Constitutional Province of Callao, the only province of the Callao Region. Callao is located west of Lima, the country's capital, and is part of the Lima Metropolitan Area, a large metropolis that holds almost...
. On board the flight were a total of 44 players, managers, staff, cheerleaders, and crewmembers, of whom only the pilot survived the accident. The team was returning from a Peruvian league match in Pucallpa
Pucallpa
Pucallpa is a city in eastern Peru located on the banks of the Ucayali River, a major tributary of the Amazon River. It is the capital of the Ucayali region, the Coronel Portillo Province and the Calleria District....
. Uncomfortable with the malfunctioning indicator on his control panel, the pilot requested a flyby of the control tower
Control tower
A control tower, or more specifically an Air Traffic Control Tower , is the name of the airport building from which the air traffic control unit controls the movement of aircraft on and around the airport. Control towers are also used to control the traffic for other forms of transportation such...
at Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
's Jorge Chávez International Airport
Jorge Chávez International Airport
Jorge Chávez International Airport , known as Aeropuerto Internacional Jorge Chávez in Spanish, is Peru's main international and domestic airport. It is located in Callao, 11 kilometers from the Historic Centre of Lima and 17 km from Miraflores. Callao is the port city now fully...
so that spotters on the ground could confirm that the plane's landing gear
Landing Gear
Landing Gear is Devin the Dude's fifth studio album. It was released on October 7, 2008. It was his first studio album since signing with the label Razor & Tie. It features a high-profile guest appearance from Snoop Dogg. As of October 30, 2008, the album has sold 18,906 copies.-Track...
was down and locked. Upon receiving visual confirmation of safe configuration for landing, the plane went around for another attempt at a landing. The Fokker flew too low and plunged into the Pacific.
Following the crash, the Peruvian Navy shut itself off from the press, and did not release the results of its investigation nor did it allow private investigations to take place. Allegations were made that the accident had been caused by the aircraft's shoddy mechanical condition, and the Navy concealed the truth in order to save face amidst the chaos the country was enduring at the hands of the Sendero Luminoso terrorist movement. It was not until 2006 that a Peruvian television program revealed that the results of the official inquiry into the cause of the disaster had been concealed by the Peruvian Navy. The investigation cited the pilot's lack of night flying experience, his misreading of the emergency procedures related to the landing gear issue, and the aircraft's poor mechanical condition as contributing factors to the accident.
A total of 43 players, managers, staff, cheerleaders, and crewmembers lost their lives in the accident; only the pilot survived. At the time, it was the eighth-worst accident in the history of Peruvian aviation. The Peruvian Football Federation chose not to end the football season early, despite the loss of what amounted to the majority of Alianza's team; the club played their last few matches with retired volunteers including Teófilo Cubillas
Teófilo Cubillas
Teófilo Juan Cubillas Arizaga is a Peruvian former footballer. He was selected as Peru's greatest ever player in an IFFHS poll, in which he was also included in the world's Top 50...
and César Cueto, players from its youth teams, and players loaned by Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an club Colo Colo. The accident was disastrous for Alianza, who lost their most promising squad in a decade, as well as that year's league title to crosstown rival Universitario de Deportes
Universitario de Deportes
Club Universitario de Deportes, also known as Universitario, or more popularly as [La] "U", is a Peruvian football club located in Lima. It is the most successful football club in Peru. The club was founded in 1924 under the name Federación Universitaria by students of the National University of...
.
Crash
After defeating Deportivo Pucallpa by 1-0 in an away match for the Peruvian league on December 8, Alianza had moved into first place of the league table. The team returned to its hotel and immediately prepared their effects for the trip back to Lima. The club had organized a charter aircraft, provided by the Air Services branch of the Peruvian NavyPeruvian Navy
The Peruvian Navy is the branch of the Peruvian Armed Forces tasked with surveillance, patrol and defense on lakes, rivers and the Pacific Ocean up to 200 nautical miles from the Peruvian littoral...
(Servicio Aeronaval de la Marina del Peru) for the trip to Pucallpa and back. The aircraft was a Fokker F27-400M Friendship
Fokker F27
The Fokker F27 Friendship is a turboprop airliner designed and built by the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker.-Design and development:Design of the Fokker F27 started in the 1950s as a replacement to the successful Douglas DC-3 airliner...
, registration
Aircraft registration
An aircraft registration is a unique alphanumeric string that identifies a civil aircraft, in similar fashion to a licence plate on an automobile...
AE-560, captained by Peruvian Navy Lieutenant Edilberto Villar. The aircraft, with serial number
Serial number
A serial number is a unique number assigned for identification which varies from its successor or predecessor by a fixed discrete integer value...
10548, had first flown in 1977, and had logged a total of 5908 hours.
The aircraft, carrying sixteen footballers, five coaching staff, four directors, eight cheerleaders, three referees, two Navy personnel, and six crewmembers, took off from FAP Captain David Abenzur Rengifo International Airport in Pucallpa at 6:30 in the afternoon. As the pilots began their descent into Lima, they noticed that they could not confirm that the Fokker's landing gear was down and locked. The aircraft requested a flyby of the control tower at Jorge Chavez airport so that observers on the ground could confirm that the wheels were down. The observers confirmed that the airplane was configured for landing; at the aircraft mechanic's go-ahead, the pilot brought the aircraft around for another attempt at a landing. The aircraft flew too low to the water, and the right wing struck the surface of the ocean as the plane was lining up with the runway. The Fokker plunged into the water 6.9 miles (11 km) northwest of the airport. At 8:05 PM, the control tower lost contact with the aircraft. A state of emergency was declared, and search and rescue
Search and rescue
Search and rescue is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger.The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, mostly based upon terrain considerations...
were dispatched to the scene of the accident. Only one survivor, Lieutenant Villar, was recovered from the water.
Passengers
Alianza Lima players- Carlos "Pacho" Bustamante
- José CasanovaJosé CasanovaJosé Casanova was a Peruvian international footballer who played as a midfielder.Casanova died in the 1987 Alianza Lima air disaster.-External links:...
- Milton Cavero
- Aldo Chamochumbi
- Luis Antonio EscobarLuis Antonio Escobar (footballer)Luis Antonio Escobar was a Peruvian international footballer who played as a striker.Escobar died in the 1987 Alianza Lima air disaster.-External links:...
- Tomas "Pechito" Farfan
- José González GanozaJosé González GanozaJosé González Ganoza was a Peruvian international footballer who played as a goalkeeper.González died in the 1987 Alianza Lima air disaster.-External links:...
- Ignacio Garreton
- William "Willy" Leon
- Jose Mendoza
- Gino Peña
- Daniel Reyes
- Cesar Sussoni
- Braulio "Tejadita" Tejada
- Alfredo TomassiniAlfredo TomassiniAlfredo Tomassini was a Peruvian football player. He was a forward for the club Alianza Lima, until 1987 when he died in an airplane crash known as the 1987 Alianza Lima air disaster. He survived the initial crash but due to a broken leg was not able to stay afloat...
- Johnny WatsonJohnny Watson (footballer)Johnny Watson Navarro was a Peruvian professional footballer who played for Sport Boys and Alianza Lima.Watson died in the 1987 Alianza Lima air disaster.-External links:...
Alianza Lima staff
- Marcos CalderonMarcos CalderónMarcos Calderón was a Peruvian football coach. He led the Peru national football team to win the Copa América 1975 and led the team to the second round of the 1978 World Cup...
(coach) - Rolando Galvez Niño (conditioning coach)
- Andres Eche Chunga (assistant)
- Washington Gomez (official)
- Santiago Miranda (team boss)
- Orestes Suarez (medic)
Other passengers
- Four other coaching staff and team directors
- Eight cheerleaders
- Three referees: Miguel Piña (referee and father of 2 boys)
- Two Navy personnel
Aftermath
The day after the accident, the entire country mourned the loss. Radio and television reporters spread the news of the disaster, and people flocked to the beaches of VentanillaVentanilla District
Ventanilla is a district of the Constitutional Province of Callao in Peru, and one of the six districts that comprise the port city of Callao. Covering more than half of the province's territory, it is Callao's largest district....
and Alianza's Alejandro Villanueva Stadium
Estadio Alejandro Villanueva
Estadio Alejandro Villanueva is a stadium located in the neighborhood of Matute in La Victoria District in Lima, Peru. The stadium is the home field of the football club Alianza Lima. The stadium has a capacity of 40,000 people.-History:...
in the La Victoria district
La Victoria District, Lima
La Victoria is a district of the Lima Province in Peru and one of the districts that comprises the city of Lima. One of the most populous in Lima....
of Lima. Over the next several days, the corpses were recovered from the sea. People attended dramatic mourning masses
Mass (liturgy)
"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...
, attended football matches played in honor of the fallen players, and participated in pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
s that started in the various barrio
Barrio
Barrio is a Spanish word meaning district or neighborhood.-Usage:In its formal usage in English, barrios are generally considered cohesive places, sharing, for example, a church and traditions such as feast days...
s the players had hailed from, stopped at the club's stadium, and ended at Lima's General Cemetery. The team was said to have gone “de La Victoria a la gloria” (from Victory to glory) a pun on the team's home district. President Alan García, Cardinal
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...
Juan Landázuri Ricketts
Juan Landázuri Ricketts
Juan Landázuri Ricketts was one of the most prominent Roman Catholic Churchmen during the 1960s and 1970s in Latin America. This was a period in which the Church was compelled to take a strong stand on human rights abuses by numerous military juntas and also concerning problems of extreme poverty...
, and several state ministers attended various public grievances, with many declaring themselves to have been Aliancistas since childhood. The municipal government of La Victoria declared three days of mourning in the district, and ordered its decoration in Alianza's blue and white colors. Bobby Charlton
Bobby Charlton
Sir Robert "Bobby" Charlton CBE is an English former professional football player, a member of the England team who won the World Cup and Ballon d'Or for European Footballer of the Year in 1966...
publicly announced his grief, having himself survived the Munich air disaster
Munich air disaster
The Munich air disaster occurred on 6 February 1958, when British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on its third attempt to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport in Munich, West Germany. On board the plane was the Manchester United football team, nicknamed the "Busby Babes",...
of 1958, which claimed the lives of many of Manchester United's "Busby Babes
Busby Babes
The Busby Babes were a group of Manchester United players, recruited and trained by the club's chief scout Joe Armstrong and assistant manager Jimmy Murphy, who progressed from the club's youth team into the first team under the management of the eponymous Matt Busby.The Busby Babes were notable...
". Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
an club Peñarol wore black mourning bands at the Intercontinental Cup
Intercontinental Cup (football)
The European/South American Cup, commonly referred to as the World Club Championship, Intercontinental Cup or Toyota Cup, was a football competition endorsed by UEFA and CONMEBOL, contested between the winners of the European Cup and the South American Copa Libertadores...
final, in a showing of solidarity with their fallen counterparts. Peruvian footballer Teófilo Cubillas
Teófilo Cubillas
Teófilo Juan Cubillas Arizaga is a Peruvian former footballer. He was selected as Peru's greatest ever player in an IFFHS poll, in which he was also included in the world's Top 50...
, who had retired the previous year, offered his services as a player to Alianza, and wore the jersey three weeks later when the championship resumed.
Shots were fired during encounters between the families of the deceased and the guards at the naval base where they appeared requesting news and explanations in the days after the accident. The Peruvian Navy sealed itself, making no statements regarding its role in the disaster. The bodies of Luis Escobar, Francisco Bustamante, Alfredo Tomasini, Gino Peña and William León were never recovered. There were rumors that player Tomasini had spent his last moments and spoken with the pilot, Villar, the only survivor; his family wished to hire a boat to aid in the search and recovery efforts, but the Navy did not allow it, closing off the accident area to all civilian traffic. In the midst of the difficult moment the country was experiencing due to the activities of the Sendero Luminoso terrorist group, the Navy's behavior led to rampant suspicion, which in turn brewed conspiracy theories.
The club members who died represented most of Alianza's
Alianza Lima
Club Alianza Lima is a Peruvian First Division football club who plays at the Estadio Alejandro Villanueva in the La Victoria District of Lima, Peru. They are one of the most famous and well supported clubs in the country and the oldest team in the Peruvian First Division.Alianza enjoyed success...
footballing strength at the time; the group of players were known collectively as Los Potrillos del '87 ("The Ponies of 1987"). Among the deceased was youth star Luis Escobar, the sensation of that year's tournament, who had debuted with the main team at age 14; he died at age 18. Players Francisco Bustamante and José Casanova, both in their twenties, played for the national team
Peru national football team
The Peru national football team, known as 'el equipo inca', represents Peru in international football competition and is managed by the Peruvian Football Federation . The team competes against the other nine members of FIFA's CONMEBOL conference, which encompasses the countries of South America...
. Also in their early twenties, forward Alfredo Tomasini, and defenders Daniel Reyes and Tomas Farfán, lost their lives in the accident. Marcos Calderón
Marcos Calderón
Marcos Calderón was a Peruvian football coach. He led the Peru national football team to win the Copa América 1975 and led the team to the second round of the 1978 World Cup...
, widely considered to be one of Peru's best coaches of all time, lost his life, as did José "el Caico" Gonzáles Ganoza, Alianza's starting keeper of 14 years. Alianza's squad was considered by the Peruvian sporting press to represent a sweeping renovation of Peruvian football. Alianza would continue to suffer during the next two decades, almost facing relegation in the year after the disaster; the team did not win a title until 1997, finally ending an 18-season drought prolonged by the loss of their star team.
Investigation
Three people initially survived the crash: Alianza Lima midfielder Alfredo TomassiniAlfredo Tomassini
Alfredo Tomassini was a Peruvian football player. He was a forward for the club Alianza Lima, until 1987 when he died in an airplane crash known as the 1987 Alianza Lima air disaster. He survived the initial crash but due to a broken leg was not able to stay afloat...
, a member of the crew, and pilot Edilberto Villar. Villar declared that he escaped through a broken window and when he was swimming, he heard Tomassini was asking for help and he gave him a cylinder. He wrote in his report that Tomassini, who was an expert swimmer, showed apathy to keep swimming despite being tall and athletic. In his report, he never said that Tomassini was injured but later he told his lawyer another version in which the player had a fractured leg. By the time they were floating it was 8 p.m. and he knew that they had to resist until morning. The other survivor was a member of the crew who quit insulting the pilot then disappeared. The pilot said that the player drowned after three times that he got him out of the water. He said that he had to let him drown.
The fact that the aircraft that the team chartered for the trip was owned by the Peruvian Navy was seen as a sign of the economic weakness endured by the Peruvian military at the time, as well as the lack of organization felt throughout Peruvian football. State-owned aircraft were notorious for being in disrepair, and frequently crashed.
In 2006, Peruvian television program La Ventana Indiscreta announced that the Naval Aviation Commission charged with investigating the accident had concluded that Lieutenant Edilberto Villar's lack of night flying experience, his misreading of the emergency procedures, and the aircraft's poor mechanical condition to be contributing factors to the accident. According to reporter Cecilia Valenzuela, the complete official file containing the Commission's findings was illegally secreted away to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by Navy Captain Edmundo Mercado Pérez, who presided over the investigation. The file remained locked in a Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
bank vault for 19 years.
According to the findings, Lieutenant Villar had logged just 5.3 hours of night flying in the 90 days preceding the accident, 3.3 of them in the previous 60 days, and had not flown at night in at least 30 days before the crash. The copilot, First Lieutenant César Morales, had logged only one hour of night flying in the 90 days preceding the accident, half an hour in the preceding 60 days, and had also not flown at night in at least 30 days. Additionally, the F27's maintenance log, which was handed to the pilot before takeoff, showed a series of mechanical defects; Lieutenant Villar initially refused to fly the aircraft out of concern for its condition.
The report, dated February 1988, also showed that halfway through the flight from Pucallpa to Lima, the crew noted a possible malfunction of the landing gear. A cockpit indicator showed that the gear had not lowered, but CORPAC
CORPAC
The Peruvian Corporation of Commercial Airports and Aviation Inc. ' operates various airports in Peru. It was founded by law in June 1943....
officials at Lima checked with observers on the ground, who informed the pilot that he could land safely. Villar then ordered Morales to check the emergency gear lowering procedure in the manual; the relevant page was written in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, which First Lieutenant Morales was not fluent in; he mistakenly instructed the pilot to follow step 1.3.1.7, which would flash a red indicator light, rather than step 1.4.3, which would display an orange light.
In a letter from the Fokker
Fokker
Fokker was a Dutch aircraft manufacturer named after its founder, Anthony Fokker. The company operated under several different names, starting out in 1912 in Schwerin, Germany, moving to the Netherlands in 1919....
aircraft company, dated October 16, 1986, the manufacturer noted that Lieutenant Villar had failed a special training course which could have prevented “his disorientation while operating under pressure, the excessive demand of work in a cabin”, but was granted permission to fly the aircraft regardless. Copilot César Morales had received no flight training from Fokker.
According to some sources, the flyby of the tower caused the Fokker's fuel reserves to become exhausted, and the aircraft ran out of fuel as it was repositioning for a second landing attempt.
See also
- In a similar incident, the Munich air disasterMunich air disasterThe Munich air disaster occurred on 6 February 1958, when British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on its third attempt to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport in Munich, West Germany. On board the plane was the Manchester United football team, nicknamed the "Busby Babes",...
killed several members of English sideFootball in EnglandAssociation football is a national sport in England, where the first modern set of rules for the code were established in 1863, which were a major influence on the development of the modern Laws of the Game...
Manchester United F.C.Manchester United F.C.Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...
in 1958. - The 1989 crash of Surinam Airways Flight PY764Surinam Airways Flight PY764Surinam Airways Flight 764 was an international scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in the Netherlands to Paramaribo-Zanderij International Airport in Suriname on a Surinam Airways DC-8...
killed a group of Surinamese players known as "The Colorful 11", whose members played professional football in the Netherlands. - The Torino A.C. side known as Il Grande Torino that dominated post-war Italian footballFootball in ItalyFootball is the most popular sport in Italy. The Italian national football team has won the FIFA World Cup 4 times , trailing only Brazil . Italy's club sides have won 27 major European trophies, making them the most successful European nation in the subject of football...
was lost in an air crash at SupergaSuperga air disasterThe Superga air disaster took place on Wednesday, 4 May 1949, when a plane carrying almost the entire Torino A.C. football squad, popularly known as Il Grande Torino, crashed into the hill of Superga near Turin killing all 31 aboard including 18 players, club officials, journalists accompanying the...
in 1949.