1977 Vieques Air Link crash
Vieques Air… Britten-Norman BN-2A · Pilot error
From St Croix, VI to Antonio Rivera Rodriguez Airport (VQS)
Event
- 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
- Event fatalities
- 5 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 10
- Survivors
- 5
- 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
- 2 serious · 3 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
- 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
- N862JA
- Operator
- Vieques Air…
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Croix, VITo Antonio Rivera Rodriguez Airport (VQS)
- 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 121: Air carrier (scheduled international passenger service)
- 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
- Engine failure or malfunction
- 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
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Fuel exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Inadequate preflight preparation and/or planning
- Pilot in command › Mismanagement of fuel
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Vieques, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
On 19 December 1977, the 1977 Vieques Air Link crash took place when a Vieques Air Link Britten Norman BN-2A Islander crashed into the waters off the Atlantic Ocean near Vieques, Puerto Rico during a flight from St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands to Vieques.
Flight
The airplane was on an international scheduled flight between St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands and Vieques, Puerto Rico.
Accident
The airplane started experiencing fuel starvation as it was near Vieques. The aircraft's engines flamed out due to the starvation, and the pilot decided to ditch off, or land the plane on the ocean, before the situation became more critical. The airplane crashed at 07:48AM local standard time.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The investigation that followed blamed the pilot due to alleged inadequate pre-flight preparation or planning, which later resulted in his mismanagement of the aircraft's available fuel and then the double-engine flame out and subsequent crash.
Text from the Wikipedia article “1977 Vieques Air Link crash” (revision 1350933789, 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: 1977 Vieques Air Link crash
- Article
- 1977 Vieques Air Link crash
- Revision
- 1350933789 · 2026-04-24 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q110206160
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19771219P070096
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "1977 Vieques Air Link crash" (page 73523671, revision 1350933789); merged with NTSB case NTSB19771219P070096 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19771219P070096: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19771219P070096
- Map position
- NTSB record NTSB19771219P070096: centre of the town the record names (GeoNames, CC BY 4.0)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19771219P070096: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19771219P070096: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled intl passg service)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19771219P070096: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19771219P070096: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "1977 Vieques Air Link crash" and NTSB case NTSB19771219P070096, 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.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.