SAETA Flight 011 (1976)

Cause

Speculation surrounding the existence of the flight data recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), the discovery of the plane's remains, as there is no certainty as to whether the plane carried both or either device. In this line, the DAC stated that no black boxes were aboard the aircraft; however, Patricio Mosquera, a former SAETA Viscount pilot who flew HC-ARS the day before its crash and later led SAETA's own search for the plane, declared that it carried at least (possibly) the FDR, which he claimed was mandated by DAC back in 1976. However, Mosquera was not sure whether the Viscount carried the CVR, claiming a long time had elapsed and did not remember it.

The opinion that at least either of the two devices was onboard was echoed by Carlos Serrano, former vice-president of SAETA, who claimed that when HC-ARS and its twin HC-AVP, were bought from Alitalia in the early 1970s, they carried both devices. HC-AVP also crashed in high ground flying the same Quito-Cuenca route with the same flight number (Flight 011) on 23 April 1979, but its wreckage was only found 5 years later in the Amazonian jungle province of Pastaza, 25 miles off course its original path and killing the five crew and 52 passengers.

In the end, the victims' families' agreement to declare the Flight 011 accident site a holy field meant that, aside from ending the search for human remains and aircraft debris, DAC had no official investigation of the tragedy and that neither the organization nor the Attorney's Office of Riobamba would search for it. Consequently, the cause of the accident is not known.