1990 Douglas DC-6 accident in Guatemala City
Aerial Transit Douglas DC-6BF · The 1990 Douglas DC-6 accident in Guatemala City occurred on 5 May 1990
From El Salvador International Airport Saint Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (SAL) to Miami International Airport (MIA)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA90RA025
- 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
- 27 · all aircraft and ground (occupants minus survivors)
- Ground fatalities
- 24
- Occupants
- Unknown
- 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
- About 10
- 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
- Not recorded
Douglas DC-6BF
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-6
- 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
- N84BL
- Operator
- Aerial Transit
- Onboard fatalities
- 3 (occupants minus survivors)
- Route
- From El Salvador International Airport Saint Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (SAL)To Miami International Airport (MIA)
- 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
- 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
- Initial climb
- First occurrenceThe 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
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Not recorded
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Estimated position: Guatemala City, the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
The 1990 Douglas DC-6 accident in Guatemala City occurred on 5 May 1990. A Douglas DC-6BF of the airline Aerial Transit Company with three crew members on board went out of control shortly after takeoff as a result of an engine failure and crashed into a residential area in the city centre of Guatemala City. The three crew members and 24 people on the ground were killed in the accident.
Accident sequence
After an uneventful flight on the first leg, the aircraft took off from La Aurora Airport in Guatemala City at 14:46 local time. Shortly after takeoff an engine failed. The crew reported by radio that they were flying a left turn and returning to the airport. During the turn, control of the aircraft was lost. The DC-6 crashed into a residential district eight kilometres south-east of the airport and burst into flames. The three crew members as well as 24 people on the ground died.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall einer Douglas DC-6 in Guatemala-Stadt 1990” (revision 258179882, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Flugunfall einer Douglas DC-6 in Guatemala-Stadt 1990
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 258179882 · 2025-07-21 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q97940189
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA90RA025
- Event ID
- 20001212X23119
- Case number
- DCA90RA025
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Flugunfall einer Douglas DC-6 in Guatemala-Stadt 1990" (page 11387695, revision 258179882), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case DCA90RA025 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: place the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata coordinates)
- 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 DCA90RA025
- Operation
- Reviewed correction (2026-09-26): A DC-6 freighter of the airline Aerial Transit Company flying San Salvador–Miami: an airline flight. The article: "A Douglas DC-6BF of the airline Aerial Transit Company with three crew members on board"
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities plus ground fatalities (aircraft occupants minus survivors)
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: ground fatalities
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "1990 Douglas DC-6 accident in Guatemala City" and NTSB case DCA90RA025, 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.
- The Wikipedia infobox's fatality count includes the ground fatalities (its survivors account for everyone else aboard); those aboard who died are that count minus the ground fatalities.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.