AeroPeru Flight 603 was a scheduled Lima(LIM)-Santiago<br />(SCL) flight, originating in Miami, which crashed on October 2,<br />1996.<br />On October 2, 1996, just past midnight, the Boeing 757 airliner crew, shortly after takeoff, reported receiving contradictory emergency messages, such as rudder ratio, overspeed,<br />underspeed and flying too low, from the onboard computer; asked for an emergency to be declared and decided to<br />return to base. Faced with the contradictory warnings, the pilot decided to descend. It was only when one wing<br />touched water, almost an hour after emergency declaration, that the pilots realized how confused and disoriented they<br />were. All nine crew members and sixty-one passengers died.<br />As the subsequent investigation proved, the primary cause of the crash was the masking tape left over the static ports<br />after cleaning the aircraft (procedures required that the static ports be covered during cleaning) — an error by the<br />maintenance crew. The static ports need to be cleared since they are particularly necessary for altitude and airspeed<br />data. This put the pilots in a very confusing situation with conflicting and false flight data, which affected even the<br />ability of ground radar to assist. The investigation put the responsibility on the flight deck crew since they did not<br />react in the best possible way, and tried to return to Lima, something impossible under VFR (visual flight rules), the<br />only way to do it without accurate data from the instruments.<br />Furthermore, they tried to get guided from the ATC. Unfortunately, the information available for the ATC was coming<br />from the transponder of the plane itself. In other words, the information was incorrect since the source was the same<br />that pilots had at the flightdeck.<br />Had they know the real problem (a tape over the static port) the solution should be very easy: Breaking the glass of a<br />pressure instrument. At that moment, they should start getting readings from the instruments. These readings should<br />be almost fully correct if they equal the inside pressure with the outside one.<br />Rumors abounded that the crash was caused by sabotage because supposedly the Peruvian Mafia wanted one of the<br />passengers (a prisoner who was being extradited to Argentina) dead. Those rumors were never confirmed. The official<br />leading the Peruvian investigation lost a nephew (the ill-fated flight's First Officer) in the crash. It has been stated by<br />coroners that some passengers survived the crash but drowned afterwards. Also, it is perfectly clear that the passengers<br />and crew were aware during their time in the air that the plane was in danger and that their lives were at risk.<br />Peruvian justice only sentenced the actual maintenance technician that had left the tape on the static ports, while not<br />apportioning blame on supervisors for poor procedures and the crew for inadequate pre-flight checkups.<br />The Flight 603 incident contributed to the demise of AeroPeru, which was already plagued with financial and<br />management difficulties.
