Argentine Navy Neptune 2P-103 crash
Neptune 2P-103 · Unknown
From Río Grande Naval Air Base, Argentina to an unrecorded destination
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
- 11 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
- 0
- 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
- Military
Neptune 2P-103
- Aircraft type
- Neptune 2
- 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
- Unknown
- Operator
- Argentine Navy
- Onboard fatalities
- 11
- Route
- From Río Grande Naval Air Base, ArgentinaTo not recorded
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 Argentine Navy Neptune 2P-103 crash occurred on 15 September 1976 when the aircraft belonging to the Naval Air Reconnaissance Squadron crashed on a reconnaissance flight.
The accident
On 15 September 1976 the Neptune departed from Río Grande Naval Air Base in the morning with the objective of carrying out a reconnaissance mission in the area of the Drake Passage and the South Shetland Islands in support of the activities of the icebreaker ARA General San Martín. At 12:13 (local time) the last communication between the aircraft and the control tower took place; after the loss of communication, the alert and search were declared at 13:22.
On 24 September, after 8 days of searching, a Hercules 130 H spotted the wreckage of the aircraft on the northern slope of Mount Barnard on Livingston Island, belonging to the South Shetland archipelago.
In January 1977 a Bell 212 helicopter belonging to the Army that was embarked on the icebreaker ARA San Martín deployed a team of mountaineers to attempt to recover the bodies of those killed in the accident. However, while attempting to ascend to the place where they lay, the helicopter crashes and its three occupants die.
After this second accident the authorities in charge gave up on continuing the rescue operations despite knowing the position of the crash and having aerial photographs of the site that other aircraft took during that summer.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Spanish Wikipedia article “Accidente del Neptune 2P-103 de la Armada Argentina” (revision 164479355, 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
Spanish Wikipedia article: Accidente del Neptune 2P-103 de la Armada Argentina
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 164479355 · 2025-01-03 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q125852954
- 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
- es Wikipedia article "Accidente del Neptune 2P-103 de la Armada Argentina" (page 10880324, revision 164479355), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from Wikidata (P17)
- 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
- operator named as an armed force or military unit in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Spanish Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.