1959 Aviaco accident on Menorca
Bristol 170 · The 1959 Aviaco accident on Menorca occurred on 13 March 1959
From Palma de Mallorca Airport (PMI) to Menorca Airport (MAH)
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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 17
- 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
Bristol 170
- Aircraft type
- Bristol 170
- 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-ADH
- Operator
- Aviaco
- Onboard fatalities
- 1
- Route
- From Palma de Mallorca Airport (PMI)To Menorca Airport (MAH)
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
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
The 1959 Aviaco accident on Menorca occurred on 13 March 1959. On that day a Bristol 170 of Aviaco, operating a domestic scheduled flight from Palma de Mallorca to Menorca, crashed after a loss of control shortly before landing at Menorca Airport; of the 18 occupants, one passenger died.
Accident sequence
The accident occurred at 9:02 local time. The aircraft was on approach to the destination airport at a height of 120 metres when the pilots extended the high-lift devices for landing. The aircraft then rolled to the right and struck the ground 500 metres short of the runway threshold. The aircraft was completely destroyed and one passenger was killed. The remaining 17 occupants of the aircraft were injured.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The cause of the accident was assumed to be a strong gust of wind or a downdraft that pushed the aircraft to the ground on final approach.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall der Aviaco auf Menorca 1959” (revision 269744166, 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 der Aviaco auf Menorca 1959
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 269744166 · 2026-08-17 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q106606186
- 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
- de Wikipedia article "Flugunfall der Aviaco auf Menorca 1959" (page 11741723, revision 269744166), translated into English with AI assistance
- 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
- "scheduled flight" in the article's opening paragraph
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the German Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.