2011 Moremi Air Cessna 208 crash
Cessna 208B Grand Caravan · Engine failure on take-off
From Maun International Airport (MUB) to Maun Airport
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's injuries. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA12RA003
- 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
- 8 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 12
- Survivors
- 4
- 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
- 4
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Cessna 208B Grand Caravan
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 208
- 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
- A2-AKD
- Operator
- Moremi Air
- Onboard fatalities
- 8
- Route
- From Maun International Airport (MUB)To Maun Airport
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Organizational issues › Management
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Organizational issues › Support/oversight/monitoring
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
On 14 October 2011, a Cessna 208 Caravan turboprop passenger aircraft operated by Moremi Air on a domestic flight from Xakanaka Camp to Maun, Botswana, crashed and caught fire shortly after take-off, killing eight of the twelve people on board.
The following investigation concluded that the aircraft suffered a catastrophic engine failure on take-off, compounded by environmental hazards at Xakanaka, which led to the plane hitting trees and crashing to the ground.
History of the flight
The aircraft had departed from Maun Airport on the morning of 14 October for a series of flight sectors in the Okavango Delta that took it to Kasane Airport. After refuelling there, at 11:50 eleven passengers boarded the aircraft. The next flight would have taken the Cessna aircraft to Pom Pom Camp, but it was decided to stop at Xakanaxa first to drop off two passengers. No flight plan was filed for the diversion to Xakanaxa, nor was the airline's base informed.
At Xakanaxa, the pilot was informed that he was required to pick up another two passengers bound for Maun. After some hesitation, the pilot agreed to take the passengers, departing from Xakanaxa with eleven passengers, despite company procedures restricting the maximum number of passengers for operations from that airfield to ten.
The Grand Caravan aircraft took off from Xakanaka Airstrip at 13:55. Almost immediately after take-off, the engine lost power and the aircraft collided with trees. It then crashed nose first approximately 600 metres from the airfield, with an intense fire quickly engulfing the wreckage, burning beyond recognition the bodies of six passengers and the pilot. A rescue team was flown in and found the wreckage still ablaze. An eighth occupant was taken to hospital but later died. Identification of the victims was only possible through DNA testing.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The investigation into the crash was carried out by the Directorate of Accident Investigation (DAI) of the Botswanan Ministry of Transport and Communications. Its results were published in June 2013.
The main cause of the accident was found to be "engine failure resulting from the failure of the Compressor Turbine Blades." Turbine blades were found to be affected by "sulphidation corrosion", although it could not be established whether that was the root cause of the failure, leaving open the possibility that material failure or inappropriate engine operation may have played a role.
The report was also very critical of Moremi Air's management style and training practices, concluding that the company's safety culture "had eroded to the extent that safety was being compromised." Other contributing factors cited were the presence of tall trees in the vicinity of the runway at Xakanaxa, the decision to embark more passengers than the maximum allowed for operations at that airfield, poor supervision of operators and airfields by the Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana (CAAB), and the engine manufacturer's failure to disseminate "critical maintenance information" among operators.
The DAI made several safety recommendations to the CAAB calling for stricter supervision of airline and airfield operators, and to Cessna, the aircraft manufacturer, to ensure that the aircraft data acquisition system (ADAS) is made to resist fire damage.
Text from the Wikipedia article “2011 Moremi Air Cessna 208 crash” (revision 1355275130, 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 14, 2011, about 1350 local time, A2-AKD, a Cessna 208B chartered flight, crashed shortly after takeoff from an airstrip near Xakanaka, Botswana. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed. Of the 12 persons on board, the pilot and 8 passengers were fatally injured. The airplane was destroyed and there was a post crash fire. The destination of the flight was the Okavanga Delta, Botswana
An investigation has been instituted by the Botswana Ministry of Transport and Communications. As the State of manufacture of the airplane, a U.S. Accredited Represenative has been designated. Inquiries about the investigaton should be directed to:
Ministry of Transport and Communications Private Bag 00414 Garborone, Botswana
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: 2011 Moremi Air Cessna 208 crash
- Revision
- 1355275130 · 2026-05-20 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q6911360
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA12RA003
- Event ID
- 20111021X72839
- Case number
- DCA12RA003
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "2011 Moremi Air Cessna 208 crash" (page 33868280, revision 1355275130); merged with NTSB case DCA12RA003 (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 DCA12RA003
- Operation
- Reviewed correction (2026-09-26): A Cessna Caravan of a small operator carrying passengers between safari camps in the Okavango Delta: a bush and commuter operation. The article: "a Cessna 208 Caravan turboprop passenger aircraft operated by Moremi Air on a domestic flight from Xakanaka Camp to Maun"
- Fatalities
- Reviewed (2026-09-19): Aviation Safety Network record 20111014-0 (archived; crew 1/1, passengers 7/11, total 8/12), https://web.archive.org/web/2020/https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20111014-0
- Ground fatalities
- Reviewed (2026-09-19): Aviation Safety Network record 20111014-0 (archived; crew 1/1, passengers 7/11, total 8/12), https://web.archive.org/web/2020/https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20111014-0
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "2011 Moremi Air Cessna 208 crash" and NTSB case DCA12RA003, 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 (DCA12RA003) gives 9 and the Wikipedia article 8; Aviation Safety Network record 20111014-0 (archived; crew 1/1, passengers 7/11, total 8/12) gives 8. ASN, press reports and Wikipedia all say the pilot and 7 passengers died (one of them later in hospital) and 4 survived. The NTSB figure of 9 matches no source and looks like a notification error. I could not get the Botswana final report. (Medium confidence, for the reason given.)
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. The narrative states "The airplane was destroyed and there was a post crash fire".