Copa Airlines Flight 201

Copa Airlines Flight 201 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Tocumen International Airport in Panama City, Panama, to Alfonso Bonilla Aragón International Airport in Cali, Colombia. On 6 June 1992, the Boeing 737-200 operating the route rolled, entered a steep dive, disintegrated in mid-air, and crashed into the jungle of the Darién Gap 29 minutes after takeoff, killing all 47 people on board. The in-flight breakup was caused by faulty instrument readings and several other contributing factors, including incomplete training.

Flight 201 is the deadliest accident in Panamanian aviation history, and the only fatal crash in the history of Copa Airlines.

Background

The aircraft was a 12-year-old Boeing 737-200 Advanced registered HP-1205. It had been leased to Copa from Britannia Airways just two months before the crash and held full Britannia Airways livery but with the Copa branding. The flight crew consisted of Captain Rafael Carlos Chial (53), First Officer Cesareo Tejada (25), and five flight attendants. The Captain had 23,750 flight hours and 7,000 hours on the 737. The Co-pilot had 3.450 flight hours and 1,600 hours on the 737.

Accident

Flight 201 took off from runway 21L at Tocumen International Airport in Panama City at 8:37 pm local time as a scheduled passenger flight to Cali, Colombia, with 40 passengers and 7 crew members. Among the passengers were Colombian merchants conducting business in Panama. At 8:47 pm, about 10 minutes after takeoff, Captain Chial contacted Panama City Air Traffic Control, requesting weather information. The controller reported that there was an area of very bad weather 30 - 50 mi from their position.

At 8:48 pm, Captain Chial made another radio contact requesting permission from Panama City ATC to fly a different route due to the severe weather ahead. The new route would take the plane over Darién Province. One minute later, at 8:49 pm, Panama City Control Center received a third message from Captain Chial, who reported reaching cruising flight level of 250 (about 25000 ft).

Problems with the aircraft began shortly before completion of the return to course after diverting from the storm. ADI began to display false data to the pilots, by only occasionally updating their bank angle, due to a short circuit, confusing the pilots. Finally, at 20:56, Flight 201 banked to the right and entered a steep dive at an angle of 80 degrees to the right and began to roll uncontrollably while accelerating towards the ground. Despite the attempts by Captain Chial and First Officer Tejada to level off, the airplane continued its steep dive until it exceeded the speed of sound and started to break apart at 10,000 ft. Most of the bodies had their clothes torn off and were thrown away from the aircraft. Flight 201 crashed into a jungle area within the Darien Gap at 486 kn, killing all 47 onboard.

At 8:57 pm, Tocumen Air Traffic Control tried unsuccessfully to make contact with the flight until it received a radio message from a KLM DC-10 aircraft that was approaching the airport, reporting that they intercepted a distress signal from Flight 201's transponder in an area between the Colombian border and Darien Province, several kilometres away from their position. After several unsuccessful attempts to contact the lost plane, Tocumen ATC finally declared a full emergency in the airport and informed the Colombian ATC centre at Bogota about the missing plane. At dawn the next day, search aircraft were sent to Flight 201's last known position.

After 8 hours, searchers spotted the first pieces of wreckage in the jungle of the Darien Gap. Because of the remoteness of the area and the difficulty of access, it took rescue personnel 12 hours to reach the site.

Because the bodies of the victims and various parts of the aircraft's fuselage were scattered in a radius of 10 km, the recovery process was extremely difficult. After investigators reached the crash site, the investigation to find the cause of the crash began.