Intercontinental de Aviación Flight 256
Intercontinental de Aviacion McDonnell Douglas DC-9-14 · Controlled flight into terrain due to altimeter failure and pilot error
From El Dorado International Airport (BOG) to Rafael Núñez International Airport, Cartagena, Colombia
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA95RA013
- 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
- 51 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 52
- Survivors
- 1
- 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
- 1
- 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
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-14
- Flight
- RS256
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas DC-9
- 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
- HK-3839X
- Operator
- Intercontinental de Aviación
- Onboard fatalities
- 51
- Route
- From El Dorado International Airport (BOG)To Rafael Núñez International Airport, Cartagena, Colombia
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Environmental issues › Operating environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Organizational issues › Development
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
Intercontinental de Aviación Flight 256 was a scheduled flight from El Dorado International Airport, Bogotá, on a service to Rafael Núñez International Airport, Cartagena, and San Andrés. On 11 January 1995, the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-14 operating the flight flew into the ground during its approach to Cartagena Airport, killing all but one of the 52 people on board. The sole survivor was a nine-year old girl who sustained minor injuries.
Crash
The flight was scheduled to depart at 12:10 but was delayed due to a failure on the previous flight. The flight eventually departed at 18:45. The aircraft climbed to flight level (FL) 310 (31000 ft) at 19:09.
During the approach to Cartagena, the air traffic control center in Barranquilla cleared flight 256 to descend to FL 140 (14000 ft) and report when passing FL 200 (20000 ft) at 19:26. The aircraft passed through FL 200 at 19:33. The last radio contact occurred when the flight was cleared further down to 8000 ft.
At 19:38, the crew of Aerocorales flight 209, operated by a Cessna Caravan aircraft, contacted the controllers. The crew reported that they had seen the lights of a rapidly descending aircraft, followed by an explosion on the ground. The plane impacted with the ground in a marshy lagoon near María La Baja, 56 km from Cartagena Airport. The plane exploded on impact and broke into three parts. 51 people were killed: 46 out of the 47 passengers and all 5 crew members.
The sole survivor of the crash was a nine-year-old girl named Erika Delgado. She was flying with her parents and younger brother, who were killed in the crash. The girl's injuries were just a few bumps and bruises, most serious being a broken arm. She stated that her mother survived the initial impact and pushed her aside into a vegetable pile to shield her away from the fire. The girl was found by one of the local residents who came running to the rescue. She explained that there was looting at the crash site and that one of the looters stole a necklace which was given to her by her father. The looting was later confirmed, and the girl asked that the necklace be returned to her, but this was unsuccessful.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
Since the crew of the Cessna reported an explosion, first suspicions arose about a terrorist attack, similar to the bombing of Avianca Flight 203 in 1989. However, investigators determined that the plane exploded when it hit the ground, and no traces of explosives were found. The probable cause of the crash was a wrong setting of the altimeter. Altimeter number 1 indicated 16200 ft on impact. Altimeter number 2 (the first officer's) worked normally, but its lights did not work, and therefore the crew could not compare their readings. Other contributing factors were the lack of radar observation in the area and the flight crew's loss of situational awareness (due to the clear weather relaxing them), as well as the airline's insufficient training of crews in this situation. In addition, it was not possible to determine whether the ground proximity warning system functioned properly, or if the crew was unable to respond to it in time, as the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) was inoperative at the time of the accident.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Intercontinental de Aviación Flight 256” (revision 1355203805, 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: Intercontinental de Aviación Flight 256
- Revision
- 1355203805 · 2026-05-20 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q13441139
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA95RA013
- Event ID
- 20001207X02846
- Case number
- DCA95RA013
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Intercontinental de Aviación Flight 256" (page 37993835, revision 1355203805); merged with NTSB case DCA95RA013 (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 DCA95RA013
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Reviewed (2026-09-19): Aerocivil (Colombia) Informe Final, Intercontinental Vuelo 256 HK-3839X, section 1.2, hosted by ASN, https://asn.flightsafety.org/reports/1995/19950110_DC91_HK-3839X.pdf
- Ground fatalities
- Reviewed (2026-09-19): Aerocivil (Colombia) Informe Final, Intercontinental Vuelo 256 HK-3839X, section 1.2, hosted by ASN, https://asn.flightsafety.org/reports/1995/19950110_DC91_HK-3839X.pdf
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Intercontinental de Aviación Flight 256" and NTSB case DCA95RA013, matched by the same aircraft maker and place 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 (DCA95RA013) gives 0 and the Wikipedia article 51; Aerocivil (Colombia) Informe Final, Intercontinental Vuelo 256 HK-3839X, section 1.2, hosted by ASN gives 51. Report table: 2 flight crew + 3 cabin crew + 46 passengers fatal, total 51. One passenger had minor injuries (52 aboard). The NTSB's 0 is a notification-record error.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date. Values present in the bulk record are kept.