2023 Caquetá Cessna Stationair crash
Avianline Charters Cessna 206 · Engine failure
From Araracuara Airport (ACR) to Jorge E. Gonzalez Torres Airport (SJE)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA23WA140
- 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
- 3 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 7
- 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
- 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
- Not recorded
Cessna 206
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- HK-2803
- Operator
- Avianline Charters
- Onboard fatalities
- 3
- Route
- From Araracuara Airport (ACR)To Jorge E. Gonzalez Torres Airport (SJE)
- 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., Non-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
- Emergency descent
- 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- 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
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article's coordinates are more than 250 km from Solano, Caquetá, the place its infobox names.
From the Wikipedia article
On 1 May 2023, a Cessna 206 light aircraft with seven people on board crashed in the jungle in the Caquetá Department of Colombia. Two of the occupants – the pilot and co-pilot were killed on impact, while four passengers survived the crash. The mother survived for several days and died, leaving the children to fend for themselves. The children, between 11 months and 13 years old, survived for 40 days in the rainforest before being rescued by the Colombian military and volunteers from local indigenous groups.
Flight
The 1982 Cessna U206G aircraft, operated by Avianline Charters, departed on the morning of 1 May 2023, from Araracuara Airport, Colombia, on a domestic charter flight to San José del Guaviare, 220 mi to the north. At 7:34 local time, the pilot made a distress call reporting engine failure, and radio contact was lost shortly after. The Colombian Air Force immediately sent out craft to search the area – a Basler BT-67 and Bell Huey helicopter.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The Colombian Civil Aviation Authority is responsible for the investigation of this accident. The final report was published in 2025, citing the major cause as engine failure likely caused by either fuel system failure or fuel contamination. The investigation team made several safety recommendations on fuel system inspection, search and rescue services, operations in the Amazon region, and other issues.
Text from the Wikipedia article “2023 Caquetá Cessna Stationair crash” (revision 1373433433, 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: 2023 Caquetá Cessna Stationair crash
- Revision
- 1373433433 · 2026-09-05 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q119293280
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record GAA23WA140
- Event ID
- 20230504107807
- Case number
- GAA23WA140
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "2023 Caquetá Cessna Stationair crash" (page 74002682, revision 1373433433); merged with NTSB case GAA23WA140 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates and infobox site disagree
- 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 GAA23WA140
- Operation
- Reviewed correction (2026-09-26): A small charter operator flying a light aircraft on a domestic charter: an air taxi flight. The article: "The 1982 Cessna U206G aircraft, operated by Avianline Charters, departed on the morning of 1 May 2023, from Araracuara Airport, Colombia, on a domestic charter flight to San José del Guaviare"
- Fatalities
- Reviewed (2026-09-19): Aviation Safety Network (3 of 7 occupants; Aerocivil final report completed), https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/311605
- Ground fatalities
- Reviewed (2026-09-19): Aviation Safety Network (3 of 7 occupants; Aerocivil final report completed), https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/311605
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "2023 Caquetá Cessna Stationair crash" and NTSB case GAA23WA140, 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 (GAA23WA140) gives 7 and the Wikipedia article 3; Aviation Safety Network (3 of 7 occupants; Aerocivil final report completed) gives 3. The NTSB recorded all 7 occupants as dead, a notification error made while the aircraft was missing. The pilot and 2 adults died; the 4 children survived 40 days in the jungle and were rescued on 9 June 2023.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.