Air Philippines Flight 541

Air Philippines Flight 541 was a scheduled domestic flight operated by Air Philippines from Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Metro Manila to Francisco Bangoy International Airport in Davao City. On April 19, 2000, the Boeing 737-200 crashed south of Davao City while on approach to the airport, killing all 124 passengers and 7 crew members. It remains the deadliest air disaster in the Philippines, surpassing the 1998 crash of Cebu Pacific Flight 387, and the third-deadliest accident involving the Boeing 737-200, after Mandala Airlines Flight 091 (which crashed five years later), and Indian Airlines Flight 113 (which crashed nearly twelve years prior).

Accident

On April 19, 2000, Flight 541, with 131 passengers and crew, left Manila at about 5:30 a.m. At around 7 a.m. the aircraft was approaching runway 05 at Davao City behind an Airbus A320 operated by Philippine Airlines. When Flight 541 broke out of the clouds the crew observed that the preceding aircraft had not cleared the runway, they advised air traffic control that a missed approach procedure would be executed. Flight 541 began to climb and re-entered the clouds. The correct procedure would have been to climb to 4,000 ft on instruments and circle around to pick up a glide slope. Instead, the pilots attempted to fly VFR in instrument conditions at a lower altitude. Flight 541 hit a coconut tree about 500 ft above sea level, and crashed east of Francisco Bangoy International Airport. The plane subsequently caught fire and disintegrated; there were no survivors.