TANS Perú Flight 204
Boeing 737-244 Advanced · Controlled flight into terrain due to pilot error in bad weather
From Jorge Chávez International Airport (LIM) to Coronel FAP Francisco Secada Vignetta International Airport (IQT)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD05RA127
- 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
- 40 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 98
- Survivors
- 58
- 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
- 58
- 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
Boeing 737-244 Advanced
- Flight
- TJ204
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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-1809-P
- Operator
- TANS Perú
- Onboard fatalities
- 40
- Route
- From Jorge Chávez International Airport (LIM)To Coronel FAP Francisco Secada Vignetta International Airport (IQT)
- 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 › Task performance
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
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 Perú Flight 204 was a domestic scheduled Lima–Pucallpa–Iquitos passenger service, operated with a Boeing 737-200, that crashed on 23 August 2005 on approach to Pucallpa Airport, 4 mi off the airfield, following an emergency landing attempt because of bad weather, killing 40 of the 98 passengers and crew aboard.
Background
The passengers were identified as 11 Americans, four Italians, one Colombian, one Australian, and one Spanish tourist. The Spanish victim was Eva María Gonzalo Torrellas, 27, from Tarazona, Aragon. Among the dead were also Americans Stephen Michael Lotti, 28, and Sherra Young Gay. All other passengers and crew members were Peruvian.
The aircraft involved was a 1981-built Boeing 737-244 Advanced registered OB-1809, which had been leased to TANS Perú from the South African lessor company Safair two months prior to the accident. Powered by two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-17A engines, the airframe had its maiden flight on 4 August 1981, and was originally delivered to South African Airways. At the time of the accident, the aircraft had accumulated 49,865 flight hours and 45,262 cycles, and was years old.
The captain was 45-year-old Octavio Pérez Palma Garreta, who had 5,867 flight hours, including 3,763 hours on the Boeing 737. The first officer was 37-year-old Jorge Luis Pinto Panta, who had 4,755 flight hours, with 1,109 of them on the Boeing 737; 38-year-old Gonzalo Chirinos Delgado, a trainee pilot, was also on board. He had 2,700 flight hours, but only 61 of them on the Boeing 737.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
Investigation of the crash site was hindered by looters, who descended upon the crash and stole various elements to be sold for scrap. A $500 reward did succeed in securing the return of the flight data recorder. After 312 days of investigations, no technical malfunctions were reported. The official cause of the accident was determined to be pilot error for not following standard procedures under adverse weather conditions. The captain took control of the plane, but the trainee pilot did not immediately monitor the instruments; as a result, the crew did not notice the rapid descent in the few crucial seconds they had where they could have avoided danger. According to Aviation Safety Network, the accident ranks among the more deadly ones that took place in 2005. It was also the second major crash involving a TANS Perú airplane in slightly over two years.
Text from the Wikipedia article “TANS Perú Flight 204” (revision 1363395415, 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 204
- Article
- TANS Perú Flight 204
- Revision
- 1363395415 · 2026-07-09 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q2648885
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record IAD05RA127
- Event ID
- 20050915X01472
- Case number
- IAD05RA127
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "TANS Perú Flight 204" (page 2524811, revision 1363395415); merged with NTSB case IAD05RA127 (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 IAD05RA127
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Reviewed (2026-09-19): CIAA (Peru) final report OB-1809-P, https://asn.flightsafety.org/reports/2005/20050823_B732_OB-1809-P.pdf
- Ground fatalities
- Reviewed (2026-09-19): CIAA (Peru) final report OB-1809-P, https://asn.flightsafety.org/reports/2005/20050823_B732_OB-1809-P.pdf
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "TANS Perú Flight 204" and NTSB case IAD05RA127, 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.
- Death toll settled: the NTSB record (IAD05RA127) gives 45 and the Wikipedia article 40; CIAA (Peru) final report OB-1809-P gives 40. The CIAA injury table gives 5 crew and 35 passengers killed, with 0 others. The NTSB notification figure of 45 is an early or incorrect count that the final report does not support.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.