CEN12WA256 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12WA256
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- API-reported fatalities
- 3 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-23-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- TG-VCH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Non-U.S., Non-Commercial
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Not recorded
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Not recorded
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Guatemala City, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
On April 21, 2012, at 1750 coordinated universal time, a Piper PA 23-250, Guatemalan registered TG-VCH, was destroyed when it impacted terrain under unknown circumstances near Guatemala City, Guatemala. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. The pilot and two passenger were fatally injured. The local flight originated from La Aurora International Airport (MGGT), Guatemala City, Guatemala.
The accident investigation is under the jurisdiction and control of the Guatemalan government. This report is for informational purposes only and contains only information released by or obtained from the Guatemalan government or Direccion General de Aeronautica Civil. Further information pertaining to this accident may be obtained from:
Gobierno De Guatemala Direccion General de Aeronautica Civil (DGAC) Aeropuerto International La Aurora Zona 13, Guatemala, C.A. 01013
Probable cause
This accident is under the jurisdiction and control of the Guatemalan DGAC.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12WA256
- Event ID
- 20120425X14118
- Case number
- CEN12WA256
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 16064c583522c587cbe369642d65179761a8286bb88d41f5a8fb014a90198ae9; retrieved 2026-09-13T22:19:45.985Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. The narrative states the airplane "was destroyed".