Date & Time:
Jan 15, 1966 at 2055 LT
Type of aircraft:
Douglas C-54 Skymaster
Operator:
Registration:
HK-730
Flight Phase:
Takeoff (climb)
Flight Type:
Scheduled Revenue Flight
Survivors:
Yes
Site:
Lake, Sea, Ocean, River
Schedule:
Cartagena – Bogotá
MSN:
18325
YOM:
1944
Flight number:
AV004
Country:
Colombia
Region:
South America
Crew on board:
4
Crew fatalities:
4
Pax on board:
60
Pax fatalities:
52
Other fatalities:
0
Total fatalities:
56
Circumstances:
Shortly after takeoff from runway 36 at Cartagena-Crespo Airport, while climbing to a height of 70 feet, the airplane descended and eventually crashed into the sea some 1,310 meters past the runway end. All four crew members and 52 passengers were killed while eight others were rescued. The aircraft was destroyed.
Probable cause:
The accident was attributed to a maintenance error resulting from inadequate inspection periodic, daily, nightly and transit servicing and consisting in failure to notice the absence of a pin looseness and/or absence of a nut which joins the torsion links of the left landing gear. A possible contributing factor in the accident was pilot error, consisting in involuntary negligence in observing or wrongly interpreting the aircraft instruments during takeoff, at the time of changing over from VFR to IFR flight and/or loss of control of the aircraft by the pilot-in-command when checking the cause of a failure in the landing gear well and no.2 engine.
