Vieques Air Link Flight 901A
Britten-Norman BN-2A ISLANDER BN-2A ISLA · Pilot error
From Antonio Rivera Rodriguez Airport (VQS) to Henry E. Rohlsen Airport (STX)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA84AA033
- 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
- Completed
- Event fatalities
- 9 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 9
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 BN-2A ISLA
- 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
- N589SA
- Operator
- Vieques Air Link
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Antonio Rivera Rodriguez Airport (VQS)To Henry E. Rohlsen Airport (STX), ST CROIX
- 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
- Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Initial climb
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel contamination
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Vieques, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
Vieques Air Link Flight 901A was a flight from Vieques Airport in Vieques, Puerto Rico, to St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands that crashed on August 2, 1984, killing all nine passengers and crew on board.
Crash
The flight was operated by a Britten-Norman Islander, registration N589SA. After refueling at Vieques Airport, the aircraft took off with one crew member, its pilot, and eight passengers, at 7:55 AM. According to an airport mechanic, the aircraft then lost altitude, the pilot regaining it momentarily before the aircraft banked to its left and nosedived into the Atlantic Ocean.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
In the course of its investigation the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) learned that on March 13, 1984, the young, 21 years old pilot had completed training at a flying school to obtain a commercial pilot's license, but was not qualified to fly as a pilot-in-command of a commuter airliner, being restricted to air charter operations only.
Further investigation revealed that the aircraft's left hand fuel tank had been filled with fuel from an underground tank contaminated with water from previous days of heavy rains, which ultimately caused the No.1 engine to fail. At the time the engine failed, the aircraft was over the ocean. The pilot attempted to turn the aircraft around; however, he turned in the wrong direction, causing the aircraft to flip and crash into the water.
The aircraft was also overloaded by between 600 lb to 700 lb over its maximum take-off weight.
The aircraft was required to have ten life vests installed. However, the divers who participated in the recovery mission stated that they found no life vests inside the aircraft. The NTSB investigators inspected ten life vests that the airline claimed had been recovered from the wreckage. Four were found to have loose carbon dioxide gas cylinders, used for inflation of the vests. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) later examined all of Vieques Air Link's life vests and found that about 40 percent of them had loose inflation cylinders.
Furthermore, it was also discovered that the aircraft's safety cards depicted a Britten-Norman Trislander, not an Islander; and that the card incorrectly showed the location of the inflation toggle and mouthpiece of the life vest type used by the airline.
Autopsies revealed that the pilot and three passengers died as a result of impact injuries; the five other passengers also had impact injuries but had drowned.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Vieques Air Link Flight 901A” (revision 1339305229, 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
A WITNESS REPORTED HE HEARD AN APPARENT ENG PROBLEM AFTER THE ACFT TOOK OFF & BEGAN A LEFT TURN FOR A X-WIND DEPARTURE. REPORTEDLY, THE ACFT OSCILLATED, THEN AFTER REGAINING SOME LOST ALT, IT BANKED ABRUPTLY TO THE LEFT, NOSED DOWN, & SUBSEQUENTLY, CRASHED IN THE OCEAN IN A LEFT WING LOW, NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED EVIDENCE THE LEFT ENG HAD LOST POWER DUE TO WATER CONTAMINATION. WATER WAS FOUND IN THE FUEL STORAGE TANK AS WELL AS IN ANOTHER ACFT THAT HAD BEEN REFUELED FROM THE SAME TANK. THE LEFT PROP HAD NOT BEEN FEATHERED & THE FLAPS WERE FOUND FULL DOWN. THE PLT HAD BEEN DESIGNATED FOR 'ON-DEMAND' FLTS, BUT HE WAS NOT CERTIFIED FOR 'SCHEDULED COMMUTER' FLTS. THE COMPANY HAD DESIGNATED THIS AS AN ON-DEMAND FLT RATHER THAN AN EXTRA-SECTION SCHEDULED COMMUTER FLT. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THE ACFT WAS LOADED 600 TO 700 LBS OVER THE MAX LIMIT & UP TO 5 INCHES BEHIND THE AFT CG LIMIT. FAA SURVEILLANCE OF THE COMPANY OPERATIONS WAS NOT EFFECTIVE IN IDENTIFYING PRBLMS. THE STORAGE TANK FILLER CAP (IN A WELL AREA) WAS NOT WATER TIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Vieques Air Link Flight 901A
- Article
- Vieques Air Link Flight 901A
- Revision
- 1339305229 · 2026-02-19 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q7928392
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA84AA033
- Event ID
- 20001214X40664
- Case number
- DCA84AA033
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Vieques Air Link Flight 901A" (page 37511050, revision 1339305229); merged with NTSB case DCA84AA033 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record DCA84AA033: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record DCA84AA033
- Map position
- NTSB record DCA84AA033: centre of the town the record names (GeoNames, CC BY 4.0)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record DCA84AA033: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record DCA84AA033: operated under Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Fatalities
- NTSB record DCA84AA033: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record DCA84AA033: NTSB API ongroundFatal
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Vieques Air Link Flight 901A" and NTSB case DCA84AA033, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB'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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.