Aviaco Flight 331
Douglas DC-8-52 · Crashed during approach for undertermined reason
From Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD) to Gran Canaria Airport (LPA)
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
- Event fatalities
- 10 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 10
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Douglas DC-8-52
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-8
- 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
- EC-ARA
- Operator
- Aviaco
- Onboard fatalities
- 10
- Route
- From Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD)To Gran Canaria Airport (LPA)
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
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 gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
Aviaco Flight 331 was a repositioning flight from Madrid, Spain, to Gran Canaria, Spain. On July 6, 1972, the DC-8 crashed into the sea near Gando while attempting to land at Gran Canaria Airport. All ten crew members on board were killed.
Accident
In the early morning of July 6, 1972, the flight was operated so that the aircraft could begin service from Gran Canaria with a charter flight to Hamburg, Germany, scheduled for the following day.
As the approach began, at approximately 1:50 a.m, the aircraft was flying at an altitude of about 2,500 feet and approximately 22 kilometers northeast of Gando when it crashed into the sea. Minutes earlier, it had maintained routine radio contact with the airport control tower without reporting any problems or anomalies.
At approximately 9:10 a.m. that same day, the Air Ministry's search and rescue services located the wreckage of the aircraft on the seabed at a depth of more than 1,500 meters. The black box was never recovered. All ten crew members on board died.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The official cause of the accident was never determined because the flight recorder was not recovered, owing to the difficulty of accessing the deep-water wreckage site.
One media outlet covering the accident quoted a witness who said the aircraft had crashed into the sea at high speed.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Aviaco Flight 331” (revision 1371787227, 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: Aviaco Flight 331
- Article
- Aviaco Flight 331
- Revision
- 1371787227 · 2026-08-28 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q105009447
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Aviaco Flight 331" (page 83415595, revision 1371787227)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- none
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.