TANS Perú Flight 222
Fokker F28-1000 Fellowship · Controlled flight into terrain due to pilot error and loss of situational awareness
From Jorge Chávez International Airport (LIM) to Chachapoyas Airport (CHH)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03RA083
- 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
- Event fatalities
- 46 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 46
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Fokker F28-1000 Fellowship
- Flight
- TJ222
- Aircraft type
- Fokker F28
- 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
- OB-1396
- Operator
- TANS Perú
- Onboard fatalities
- 46
- Route
- From Jorge Chávez International Airport (LIM)To Chachapoyas Airport (CHH)
- 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., 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
- Not recorded
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Miscellaneous
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Organizational issues › Management
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
TANS Peru Flight 222 was a domestic passenger flight from Lima, Peru to Chachapoyas with a stopover at Chiclayo, which crashed on 9 January 2003. The flight was operated by a Fokker F28-1000 Fellowship short range airliner. The aircraft crashed into the side of a hill while on approach to Chachapoyas Airport. All 46 passengers and crew aboard were killed in the deadliest crash in the airline's history.
An investigation led by Peru's air accident investigation body, the Ministry of Transport and Communications determined the primary cause of the crash was multiple crew errors including poor crew communication and overconfidence.
Accident
Flight 222 departed FAP Captain José Abelardo Quiñones González International Airport, Chiclayo, at 08:17 local time and was cleared to flight level 190 on a heading of 075. At 08:32 the flight turned left to a heading of 060 and four minutes later began a descent to flight level 130. At 08:41 the speed brakes were deployed slowing the aircraft from 280 to 210 kn. Fifty seconds later the crew initiated a right turn to heading 135 to line up with runway 13 at Chachapoyas Airport. At 08:46 the Fokker crashed into the vertical face of a hill known as Cerro Collorque at an altitude of 3,450 m, just 35 m below the summit. Rescue teams didn't find the wreckage until two days later. None of the occupants survived as the plane was pulverized by the crash.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The Peruvian Ministry of Transport and Communications commenced an investigation, which began shortly after the crash. Both the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) were recovered. Examination of the CVR revealed the crew was over confident and failed to follow published procedures. The landing check list was not followed and communication between the crew was poor.
Chachapoyas Airport has a VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) so the crew knew in what direction the airport was, however no distance measuring equipment (DME) was available so they could not be sure how far from the runway they were. In conditions of very poor visibility the flight began the descent too early leading to impact with a hill side approximately 10 miles north of the airport.
The official report states controlled flight into terrain due to "complacency" and "the lack of effective communication" between the crew as the most probable primary cause of the accident. A contributing factor could have been the death of the co-pilot's father four days before the accident flight, possibly distracting him. The investigators also found the crew's work environment to be unsatisfactory due to constant management changes and lack of wages and bonuses paid.
Text from the Wikipedia article “TANS Perú Flight 222” (revision 1344315983, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: TANS Perú Flight 222
- Article
- TANS Perú Flight 222
- Revision
- 1344315983 · 2026-03-19 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q7669317
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record FTW03RA083
- Event ID
- 20030114X00063
- Case number
- FTW03RA083
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "TANS Perú Flight 222" (page 21440965, revision 1344315983); merged with NTSB case FTW03RA083 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record FTW03RA083
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "TANS Perú Flight 222" and NTSB case FTW03RA083, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.