American Airlines Flight 965 - Essay Example

The accident was investigated by the Aeronautica Civil, Republica de Colombia. Assistance was provided by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) under the provisions of Annex 13, Investigation of Accidents and Incidents, to the Convention on International Civil Aviation. At 2142 hours Eastern Standard Time (EST), on December 20, 1995, American Airlines Flight 965, a Boeing 757-223 bearing the N Number N651 AA, on a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Miami International Airport (IATA Code MIA), Florida USA to Alfonso Bonilla Aragon International Airport (IATA code SKCL), at Cali, Columbia, operating under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR)3, crashed into mountainous terrain during descent from cruise altitude in Visual Meteorological conditions (VMC).

The accident site was near the town of Buga, 33 miles northeast of Cali VOR4 (CLO). The airplane impacted at 8,900 feet means sea level (MSL), near the summit of El Deluvio. Of the 155 passengers, 2 flight crew members and 6 cabin crew members on board, only 4 passengers survived the accident. Under a different crew, the airplane had flown in from Guayaquil, Ecuador at about 1438 EST, on 20th December 1995. The flight crew reported no significant or operational discrepancies on the airplane. The captain and First Officer arrived at the airline’s MIA operations office about 1 hour before the scheduled departure time of 1640.

The operations base manager later stated that both of them were in his office about 40 minutes before check-in time and appeared to be in good spirits. As per the AA flight dispatcher at MIA, Flight 965 was delayed at the gate for about 34 waiting for the arrival of connecting passengers and baggage. The flight departed the gate at 1714 and experienced a ground delay of 1 hour and 21 minutes, which according to the dispatcher, was related to gate congestion due to airport traffic. Subsequently, AA 965 departed MIA at 1835 en route to Cali, with an estimated flight time of 3 hours and 12 minutes to Cali.