Flight

The twin engine airplane (a PA-31 Panther II variant) departed Nueva Loja-Lago Agrio Airport at 1023LT on an ambulance flight to Guayaquil, carrying one patient, one nurse, two doctors and two pilots. The descent to Guayaquil-José Joaquín de Olmedo Airport was started when the aircraft crashed in unknown circumstances in the Río Salitre, near Salitre, about 35 km north of Guayaquil Airport. The aircraft was destroyed and all six occupants were killed.

The twin engine aircraft entered the Dominican airspace without clearance while probably being involved in an illegal mission (contraband). After being traced by an A-29B Super Tucano, it crashed in unknown circumstances in a sugar cane field located in Batey Palo Bonito. The aircraft was destroyed by impact forces and a post crash fire and both occupants were killed.

The pilot was approaching Chetumal Airport when he reported engine problems. He elected to make an amergency landing when the aircraft crash landed in an open field located in Sergio Butrón Casas, about 25 km west of Chetumal Airport. Both occupants were slightly injured and the aircraft was damaged beyond repair.

The twin engine aircraft departed Ganzhou Airport at 1440LT on a cloud seeding mission over the Jiangxi Region. While flying in clouds, the aircraft entered an uncontrolled descent, entered a spin and eventually crashed in a residential area. All five occupants were killed and one people on the ground was slightly injured.

The non-instrument-rated pilot departed on a cross-country flight. Radar track data revealed the airplane traveled on a relatively straight course to the northeast for about 32 minutes. Near the end of the flight track data, the track showed an increasingly tight left spiraling turn near the accident site. The airplane impacted steep sloping terrain, and a postimpact fire ensued. As a result of the impact, the airplane was segmented into several sections. Examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunction or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The attitude indicator instrument was disassembled, and the vacuum-powered rotor and housing revealed rotational scoring damage, indicating the instrument vacuum system was operational at the time of the accident. The investigation found no evidence indicating the pilot checked the weather or received weather information before departure. The surrounding weather reporting stations near the accident site reported wind conditions with peak gusts up to 47 knots around the time of the accident. The pilot likely encountered mountain wave activity with severe turbulence, which resulted in loss of control of the airplane and impact with terrain. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to obtain a preflight weather briefing, which would have alerted him to the presence of hazardous strong winds and turbulent conditions. Postmortem toxicology testing of the pilot’s lung and muscle tissue samples detected several substances that are mentally and physically impairing individually and even more so in combination for performing hazardous and complex tasks. However, blood concentrations are needed to determine the level of impairment, and no blood samples for the pilot were available. While the pilot was taking potentially impairing medications and likely had conditions that would influence decision making and reduce performance, without blood concentrations, it was not possible to determine whether the potentially impairing combination of medications degraded his ability to safely operate the airplane.

The pilot, sole on board, departed Tapachula Airport in the early morning. In unknown circumstances, the twin engine aircraft crashed in a prairie located near an agricultural sector in Comitán de Domínguez. The aircraft was destroyed and the pilot was injured.

During the first 15 minutes of the flight, the pilot of the complex, high performance, jet airplane appeared to have difficulty maintaining the headings and altitudes assigned by air traffic controllers, and throughout the flight, responded intermittently to controller instructions. After reaching an altitude of 27,000 ft, the airplane began to deviate about 30° right of course while continuing to climb. The controller alerted the pilot, who did not respond, and the airplane continued to climb. Two minutes later, the airplane entered a tight, spiraling descent that lasted 8 minutes until the airplane impacted the ground at high speed in a rightwing-low attitude. The airplane was highly fragmented on impact; however, examination did not reveal any evidence of structural failure, in-flight fire, a bird strike, or a cabin depressurization event, and both engines appeared to be producing power at impact. Although the 72-year-old private pilot had extensive flight experience in multiple types of aircraft, including jets, he did not hold a type rating in the accident airplane, and the accident flight was likely the first time he had flown it solo. He had received training in the airplane about two months before the accident but was not issued a type rating and left before the training was complete. During the training, he struggled significantly in high workload environments and had difficulty operating the airplane’s avionics suite, which had recently been installed. He revealed to a fellow pilot that he preferred to “hand fly” the airplane rather than use the autopilot. The airplane’s heading and flight path before the spiraling descent were consistent with the pilot not using the autopilot; however, review of the flight path during the spiraling descent indicated that the speed variations appeared to closely match the airplane’s open loop phugoid response as documented during manufacturer flight tests; therefore, it is likely that the pilot was not manipulating the controls during that time.

The pilot, sole on board, departed Flandes-Santiago Vila Airport runway 02 at 1257LT on a flight to Guaymaral in Bogotá. En route, weather conditions worsened and the visibility was poor. While cruising at an altitude of 9,260 feet, the twin engine airplane impacted trees and crashed in a wooded and hilly terrain located near Bojacá. The aircraft was destroyed by impact forces and the pilot was killed.

Crashed in unknown circumstances near the village of Zolota Sloboda and came to rest upside down in an open field. Sole on board, the pilot was killed. It was reported that the flight was illegal, that the pilot did not have a valid licence and that the registration was cancelled from the Ukrainian register in 2019.

After flying over the Yucantan Province and the Cayman Islands, the aircraft entered the Venezuelan Airspace without permission. It was pursued by F-16 fighters over the Lake of Maracaibo until it crashed in unknown circumstances in the Jesús María Semprún municipality. There was no fire and no casualties apparently. The aircraft was destroyed.