Avianca Flight 011

Information
Avianca Flight 011, registration HK-2910X, was a Boeing 747-283B on an international scheduled passenger flight from Frankfurt via Paris, Madrid, and Caracas to Bogota, Colombia that crashed on 27 November 1983. It took off from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris at 22:25 on 26 November 1983 for Madrid Barajas Airport; take-off was delayed waiting for additional passengers from a Lufthansa flight due to a cancellation of the Paris-Frankfurt-Paris segment by Avianca for operational reasons.

Pilots
As one of the airline's flagship aircraft at the time, Avianca's Boeing 747s were operated by selected and highly experienced crews. The plane was commanded by Captain Tulio Hernández, who had been serving Avianca for 35 years, accompanied by First Officer, Captain Eduardo Ramírez and Flight Engineers Juan Laverde, Daniel Zota and Julio Florez Camacho.

Until the time of the accident, Captain Hernández had a record of 23,215 flight hours, 2,432 of them on Boeing 747, the First Officer, Captain Ramírez, totaled 4384 hours, 875 of them on Boeing 747, it was a flight ordinary, therefore they knew the details of operation and navigation, and each had a record of takeoffs and landings at the Madrid airport several dozen times. Sigrun Günther Platzöder (Nürnberg, 41) acted as chief stewardess.

Background
It was nighttime at the time of the accident, the meteorological conditions just before the crash consisted of a visibility of 5 miles, and the wind was calm. About 20 minutes prior to the impact, the aircraft had obtained meteorological information on the weather conditions at Barajas from Avianca. The first contact with Spanish air traffic controllers had taken place at 23:31. At 00:03 the aircraft contacted Barajas again, and was cleared to land on runway 33; this was the air traffic controller's last contact with the aircraft. The accident took place in the township of Mejorada del Campo, approximately 7.5 miles southeast of the Madrid Airport. The time of the accident was approximately 00:06 on 27 November. The plane hit three different hills on its way down during the crash, with the third hill being the final impact. The debris of the airplane was widely scattered as a consequence of the impacts. The crash killed 158 passengers, 19 crew members, and four off-duty crew members. 11 were seriously injured. Of the injured, nine were ejected from the airplane, a few of them still in their seats, and two claimed to have exited the aircraft by themselves.The aircraft was completely destroyed by the impact and ensuing fire The airplane was equipped with a digital flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder, both of which were recovered on the day of the accident in good condition.