Punta del Este air crash
Aviajet Beechcraft King Air · Under investigation
From Capitan Corbeta CA Curbelo International Airport (PDP) to San Fernando Airport (SADF)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15RA163
- 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
- Final · CIAIA final report
- Event fatalities
- 10 · 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
- Unknown
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beechcraft King Air
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft KING AIR
- 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
- LV-CEO
- Operator
- Aviajet
- Onboard fatalities
- 10
- Route Possible conflict
- From Capitan Corbeta CA Curbelo International Airport (PDP)To San Fernando Airport (SADF)
- 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., 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
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 Punta del Este air crash refers to the event of that type that occurred on 19 March 2015, in which a Beechcraft King B-90 aircraft plunged into the shallow waters of Laguna del Sauce, in the vicinity of the tourist city of Punta del Este, in south-eastern Uruguay. As a result of the event the ten people travelling on it lost their lives, the two pilots and 8 passengers, all executives linked to the tourism sector, who were returning to Argentina. Taking into account the number of dead, it was the deadliest aviation accident in the history of Maldonado department.
The accident
After nightfall, with ideal weather conditions and full fuel, the Beechcraft King B-90 took off on a return flight to San Fernando International Airport (Buenos Aires Province, Argentina) from runway 01-19 of Punta del Este International Airport (officially named "Aeropuerto Internacional Carlos A. Curbelo de Laguna del Sauce"), in Punta del Este (Maldonado department, Uruguay). 37 seconds after leaving the runway and at 20:37 (Uruguayan time) it suffered an emergency, initially described by some as having "exploded in the air"; however, Uruguayan specialists ruled out that possibility, leaning towards the belief that the aircraft had suffered a failure in one of its turbines and, as this occurred shortly after takeoff, it had not managed to gain enough height to be able to successfully carry out the procedure indicated by the protocol for handling this type of emergency, which consists of going straight ahead.
It subsequently plunged nose-first into a section no more than a metre and a half deep covered with floating aquatic plants (camalotes) within the waters of Laguna del Sauce, coming to rest semi-submerged very close to the shore of the place called "La Lengua", immediately becoming engulfed in flames. On touching the water of the lagoon the aircraft turned 180 degrees, so that in its final position it ended up with the nose pointing towards the place from which it had taken off. The site is located at the coordinates:.
According to information supplied by Uruguayan Air Force personnel the aircraft «took off», which suggests that the pilot tried to land after suffering some malfunction.
During takeoff communication between the control tower and the aircraft's pilots was normal; the few moments between the explosion and the crash did not give them enough time to be able to report the emergency, so the aircraft's alert system was activated automatically. Between 75 and 80 % of the aircraft was burned, its fuselage remaining fairly intact and with the doors closed.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Spanish Wikipedia article “Accidente aéreo de Punta del Este” (revision 165480504, 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
NTSB narrative
On March 19, 2015, about 20:38 Local Time, a Beech Model B90 King Air, Argentine Registration LV-CEO, operated by Drogueria Meta, S.A., impacted water in Laguna del Sauce, Punta del Este, Uruguay. Night visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and flight plan information was unknown for the charter flight which departed from Capitan Corbeta CA Curbelo International Airport (SULS) immediately prior to the accident and was destined for San Fernando Airport (SADF), Republic of Argentina. The two pilots and 8 passengers were fatally injured, and the airplane was destroyed due to impact forces and post-crash fire.
This accident investigation is under the jurisdiction of the Comision Investigadora De Accidentes E Incidentes De Aviacion of Uruguay. Any further information pertaining to this accident may be obtained from:
Comision Investigadora De Accidentes E Incidentes De Aviacion Av. Wilson Ferreira Aldunate (ex Cno. Carrasco) 5519 Aeropuerto Internacional de Carrasco Caneiones, Uruguay Telephone: 00598 26014851 Fax: 00598 26014851 E-mail: ciaia@mdn.gub.uy
This report is for informational purposes only, and contains only information released by or obtained from the Government of Uruguay.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Spanish Wikipedia article: Accidente aéreo de Punta del Este
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 165480504 · 2025-02-17 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q19642338
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record ERA15RA163
- Event ID
- 20150320X15605
- Case number
- ERA15RA163
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- es Wikipedia article "Accidente aéreo de Punta del Este" (page 6821803, revision 165480504), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case ERA15RA163 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date; matches the Comisión Investigadora de Accidentes e Incidentes de Aviación (CIAIA), Ministerio de Defensa Nacional, Uruguay final report
- 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 ERA15RA163
- Operation
- not stated in the Wikipedia article's infobox or opening paragraph
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities; matches the Comisión Investigadora de Accidentes e Incidentes de Aviación (CIAIA), Ministerio de Defensa Nacional, Uruguay final report
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Punta del Este air crash" and NTSB case ERA15RA163, 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.
- Checked against the Comisión Investigadora de Accidentes e Incidentes de Aviación (CIAIA), Ministerio de Defensa Nacional, Uruguay final report on 2026-09-18. The report states the same date, fatalities, registration, departure, destination and damage. Shown unchanged where the report gives another value or wording: operator (shown Aviajet S.A.; report Droguerias Meta S.A., Dihemo S.A. e Inversiones Locales S.A.). Not checked: place, crash-site coordinates, flight number, aircraft type, type of operation and ground fatalities.