Disappearance of a Beechcraft 1900 off São Tomé
Groupe Transair (operated by Sahel Aviation Service) Beechcraft 1900 · Not determined (officially — presumably spatial disorientation or a lightning strike)
From Lanseria, Johannesburg (South Africa) to Bamako (Mali)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA13WA089
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Unknown
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Beechcraft 1900
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 1900
- 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
- ZS-PHL
- Onboard fatalities
- 1
- Route
- From Lanseria, Johannesburg (South Africa)To Bamako (Mali)
- 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
- En route
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
The disappearance of a Beechcraft 1900 off São Tomé was an aviation occurrence that took place on 7 April 2013. A Beechcraft 1900C-1 aircraft operating a ferry flight from Lanseria (South Africa) to Bamako (Mali), with intermediate stops in Ondangwa (Namibia), São Tomé and Accra (Ghana), disappeared while on approach to São Tomé Airport. On board was a single pilot, a citizen of the United States. Despite the searches carried out, neither the wreckage of the aircraft nor the pilot's body was found.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The investigation was conducted by the national commission of São Tomé and Príncipe (CNIPAIA). The final report was published in 2018.
Probable causes
The commission suggested that the crash could have occurred due to:
spatial disorientation of the pilot during the approach in thunderstorm conditions;
a lightning strike that led to loss of control;
pilot fatigue due to the long flight.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Russian Wikipedia article “Исчезновение Beechcraft 1900 у Сан-Томе” (revision 155119161, 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
The Sao Tome and Principe Civil Aviation Authority (STPCAA) has notified the NTSB of an accident involving a Beech 1900 that occurred on April 07, 2013. The NTSB has appointed a U.S. Accredited Representative to assist STPCAA investigation under the provisions of ICAO Annex 13 as the State of Manufacturer and Design of the airplane/engine.
All investigative information will be released by STPCAA.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Russian Wikipedia article: Исчезновение Beechcraft 1900 у Сан-Томе
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 155119161 · 2026-09-16 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA13WA089
- Event ID
- 20130514X13118
- Case number
- DCA13WA089
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- ru Wikipedia article "Исчезновение Beechcraft 1900 у Сан-Томе" (page 11475753, revision 155119161), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case DCA13WA089 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record DCA13WA089
- Map position
- NTSB record DCA13WA089: events decimal 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 DCA13WA089
- Operation
- not stated in the Wikipedia article's infobox or opening paragraph
- 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 "Disappearance of a Beechcraft 1900 off São Tomé" and NTSB case DCA13WA089, 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.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.