LADE Flight 072

On 8 November, 1995, LADE Flight 072, a Fokker F27 Friendship 400M operating an internal Air Force connection flight in Argentina from General Enrique Mosconi International Airport which is a mixed Civilian/Air Force Base airport, Chubut Province to Córdoba Airport, Córdoba Province, with a stopover in Villa Reynolds Airport, San Luis Province, crashed into the Cerro Los Linderos mountain. All 53 people on board were killed. The crash is a case of controlled flight into terrain, caused by the fact that the aircraft was at an altitude too low for the area.

Accident

The aircraft, on a charter flight, was to fly on the Comodoro Rivadivia-Córdoba route, with an intermediate stopover. The first leg of the flight went uneventful, then, when the aircraft was about to take off from Villa Reynolds Airport, a thunderstorm was spotted in the path that they would have followed; this caused the flight to be delayed and nearly cancelled, but the passengers insisted to continue, and so it was done. The flight path was modified to avoid the thunderstorm, the aircraft would have flown at a lower altitude and would have passed over the city Río Cuarto, just south of the storm front. The aircraft took off again and started its cruise, but, shortly after, at about 8:30 pm local time, the air traffic control centre in Córdoba lost contact with the aircraft, and at the same time residents of the area of the plane's last known position reported seeing an aircraft flying low and exploding after hitting a mountainside. Flight 072 struck the Cerro Los Linderos mountain at an altitude of about 2400 meters, killing all 53 people on board on impact.