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2012 Cessna T210 crash in Ecuador

13 May 2012 · Taiche del Coaque, Manabí, Ecuador

Cessna 210 Centurion · Crashed into a hill

From Mexico to Manabí, Ecuador

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Event

NTSB case
ERA12WA354
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
2 · 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 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
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
General aviation
WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
Not recorded

Cessna 210 Centurion

Aircraft type
Cessna 210
Category
Airplane
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
XB-MPL
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
2
Route
From MexicoTo Manabí, Ecuador
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
Non-U.S., Non-Commercial
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
Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
Defining eventThe 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
Miscellaneous/other
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Substantial

Cause areas

No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.

Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.

From the Wikipedia article

The Cessna T210 narco-plane crashed in Manabí, Ecuador, was a Mexican light aircraft carrying enormous amounts of money and used for smuggling and drug trafficking, which was heading to an illicit laboratory on the central coast of Ecuador, in Manabí Province, and which crashed near Pedernales on 13 May 2012.

Translated into English with AI assistance from the Spanish Wikipedia article “Accidente del Cessna T210 en Ecuador de 2012” (revision 174471228, 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 Cessna T210 en Ecuador de 2012
Article
Accidente del Cessna T210 en Ecuador de 2012
Translation
Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
Revision
174471228 · 2026-07-21 · retrieved 2026-09-19
Wikidata
Q5683130
Licence
Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record ERA12WA354
Event ID
20120523X00832
Case number
ERA12WA354
Dataset
full-current
Source SHA-256
5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
Record
es Wikipedia article "Accidente del Cessna T210 en Ecuador de 2012" (page 5219935, revision 174471228), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case ERA12WA354 (events / aircraft)
Date
Wikipedia infobox: date
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site
Map position
Wikipedia: Wikipedia article 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 ERA12WA354
Operation
Reviewed correction (2026-09-26): A private light aircraft used for drug smuggling, not an airline, charter, state or military flight: an illicit private flight, counted as general aviation. The article: "a Mexican light aircraft carrying enormous amounts of money and used for smuggling and drug trafficking"
Fatalities
Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
Ground fatalities
Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
Summary
Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
  • One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "2012 Cessna T210 crash in Ecuador" and NTSB case ERA12WA354, 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.
  • Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.