SAETA Flight 232

On 15 August 1976, SAETA Flight 232 en route from Quito, Ecuador, to Cuenca was reported missing while in flight. The SAETA-operated Vickers Viscount 785D carried 55 passengers and 4 crew members.

SAETA Flight 232
The aircraft involved in the incident
Accident
Date15 August 1976
SummarySuspected hijack
SiteChimborazo
Aircraft typeVickers Viscount 785D
OperatorSAETA
RegistrationHC-ARS
Flight originQuito, Ecuador
DestinationCuenca, Ecuador
Passengers55
Crew4
Fatalities59
Survivors0

Searches of the possible crash area produced no results. A mid-route crash on the stratovolcano Chimborazo was considered to be most probable, though some speculated a guerrilla hijacking.[1]

The plane was eventually found at 5,310m in October 2002 by two members of the Nuevos Horizontes mountaineering club, Pablo Chiquiza and Flavio Armas, while exploring a new route to the summit of Chimborazo via the Garcia Moreno Glacier. However, they did not report it immediately. The discovery wasn't confirmed until February 2003, when a team hired by the television station Teleamazonas went up to film a video of the wreckage, and found human remains, newspapers from the day the plane disappeared and identification cards of known passengers.[2][3][4]

References
  1. UPI (12 September 1976). "After a month, plane still missing". Ellensburg Daily Record. Quito, Ecuador. p. 5.
  2. Associated Press (19 February 2003). "Plane crash's frozen victims found 27 years later". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  3. "Restos de 59 víctimas de accidente de avión descansarán entre la nieve". www.cronica.com.mx (in Spanish). Retrieved 11 September 2017.
  4. "Se confirma que hallazgo de avión fue el año pasado" (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 May 2018.

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