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Divi Divi Air Flight 014

22 Oct 2009 · Off the Coast of Bonaire

Britten-Norman BN-2A Islander · Engine failure, ditching at sea

From Hato International Airport (CUR) to Flamingo International Airport (BON)

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Event

NTSB case
ERA10WA044
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
1 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
Unknown
Occupants
10
Survivors
9
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 · 9 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
Visual Meteorological Cond

Britten-Norman BN-2A Islander

Flight
3R014
Aircraft type
Britten Norman BN-2
Category
Airplane
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
PJ-SUN
Onboard fatalities
1
Route
From Hato International Airport (CUR)To Flamingo International Airport (BON)
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
En route · cruise
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
Loss of engine power (total)
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Substantial

Cause areas

  • Not determined › Not determined

Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.

From the Wikipedia article

Divi Divi Air Flight 014 (some sources refer to it as Flight 016) was a scheduled commuter flight from Hato International Airport in Curaçao to Flamingo International Airport in Bonaire carrying a single pilot and nine passengers, which on 22 October 2009 crashed in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Bonaire due to an engine failure.

Accident

The flight originated from Hato International Airport in Curaçao en route to the Flamingo International Airport on the sister island of Bonaire. The aircraft departed from Curaçao at 09:48 with an estimated landing time of 10:13 at Bonaire. Approximately 10 minutes after departure the starboard engine failed in flight. The pilot, Robert Mansell, elected to continue the flight to Bonaire on the remaining engine and contacted Flamingo Tower at approximately 24 nmi west of Bonaire. He informed the controller that he was flying on one engine. Following the engine failure, the aircraft started to lose altitude at a rate of about 200 feet per minute until it impacted the water at a position approximately 0.5 nmi south of Klein Bonaire and 3 nmi west of the main island at time 10:17.

Moments before the ditching Mansell looked into the cabin and gave the thumbs up to the passengers, checking that their life vests were on.

During the ditching, at impact with the water surface, the cockpit door and left main landing gear were detached from the aircraft. All nine passengers survived the ditching and were rescued by a nearby diver's boat. The passengers reported that after the ditching, the pilot was injured and appeared to be unconscious as he did not try to remove himself from the aeroplane. The pilot actually went down with the aircraft despite the efforts of some passengers who tried to remove him from his seat while the aeroplane was sinking.

Text from the Wikipedia article “Divi Divi Air Flight 014” (revision 1348412203, 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

NTSB narrative

On October 22, 2009, about 1417 universal coordinated time, a Britten Norman BN-2A/26, PJ-SUN, experienced a right engine failure during cruise flight, and subsequently ditched in the Caribbean Sea, near Kralendijk, Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles. The airplane is presumed to be substantially damaged. The certificated commercial pilot was fatally injured and nine passengers sustained minor injuries. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and a visual flight rules flight plan was filed for the flight that departed Willemstad, Curacao (TNCC), destined for Kralendijk, Bonaire (TNCB). The scheduled passenger flight was conducted under the provisions of Civil Aviation Regulation Netherlands Antilles (CARNA) Part 8.

This investigation is under jurisdiction of the Netherlands Antilles Government. Any further information pertaining to this accident may be obtained from:

Directorate of Civil Aviation (Ministry of Communications) Seru Mahuma z/n Curacao, Netherlands Antilles

This report is for informational purposes and contains only information released by the Netherlands Antilles Government.

Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset

Sources

Wikipedia article: Divi Divi Air Flight 014
Article
Divi Divi Air Flight 014
Revision
1348412203 · 2026-04-12 · retrieved 2026-09-18
Wikidata
Q5283989
Licence
Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record ERA10WA044
Event ID
20091102X24828
Case number
ERA10WA044
Dataset
full-current
Source SHA-256
5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
Record
Wikipedia article "Divi Divi Air Flight 014" (page 25745763, revision 1348412203); merged with NTSB case ERA10WA044 (events / aircraft)
Date
Wikipedia infobox: date
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record ERA10WA044
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 ERA10WA044
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 "Divi Divi Air Flight 014" and NTSB case ERA10WA044, 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.
  • Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.