LANSA Flight 508

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**LANSA Flight 508**
Summary
Date	December 24, 1971
Type	Pilot Error, Lightning Strike
Site	Puerto Inca, Peru
Fatalities	91
Injuries	1
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Lockheed Electra L-188A
Operator	LANSA
Tail number	OB-R-941
Passengers	86
Crew	6
Survivors	1

LANSA Flight 508 was a Lockheed Electra L-188A turboprop, registered OB-R-941, operated as a scheduled domestic passenger flight by Lineas Aéreas Nacionales Sociedad Anonima (LANSA), that crashed in a thunderstorm enroute from Lima, Peru to Pucallpa, Peru, on December 24, 1971, killing 91 of its 6 crew and 86 passengers.^[1] The sole survivor was a 17 year old girl, who fell 2 miles (3 km) down into the Amazon rainforest strapped to her seat and remarkably survived the fall, and was then able to walk through the jungle for 10 days until she was rescued by local lumbermen.^[2]

1 Flight history
2 Accident investigation
3 Koepcke's survival
4 See also
5 Notes
6 External links

[edit] Flight history

LANSA Flight 508 departed Lima's Jorge Chávez International Airport just before noon on Christmas Eve, on its way to Iquitos, Peru with a scheduled stop at Pucallpa, Peru. The aircraft was flying at Flight Level 210 (about 21,000 ft / 6,400 m above Mean Sea Level) when it encountered an area of thunderstorms and severe turbulence. There was evidence the crew decided to continue the flight despite the hazardous weather ahead, apparently due to pressures related to meeting the holiday schedule.^[3]^[4]

At about 12:36 PM local time, a lightning strike ignited the fuel tank in the right wing, which quickly led to structural failure of the aircraft. As the plane disintegrated, a 17 year old German teenager, Juliane Margaret Koepcke, fell down into the Amazon rainforest 2 miles (3 km) below, strapped to her seat. Despite sustaining a broken collar bone and an eye injury in the fall, she was able to trek through the dense Amazon jungle for 10 days, until she was rescued by local lumbermen, who subsequently took her by canoe back to civilization. It was later discovered that as many as 14 other passengers also survived the initial fall from the disintegrated plane, but were unable to seek help and died while awaiting rescue.^[4]

[edit] Accident investigation

Peruvian investigators determined the following sequence of events leading to the accident:^[1]

"About forty minutes after take-off, the aircraft entered a zone of strong turbulence and lightning. After flying for twenty minutes in this weather at FL210 lightning struck the aircraft, causing fire on the right wing which separated, along with part of the left wing. The aircraft crashed in flames into mountainous terrain. Structural failure occurred because of the loads imposed on the aircraft flying through a severe thunderstorm, but also because of stresses resulting from the maneuver to level out the aircraft. "

The final summary of the cause of the accident was:^[3]

"The aircraft suffered a lightning strike, which led to a fire and the separation of the right wing. Intentional flight into hazardous weather conditions."

[edit] Koepcke's survival

Juliane Koepcke was a high school senior studying in Lima, intending to become a Zoologist, like her father, Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke. Her mother, Maria Koepcke, a leading Peruvian Ornithologist, was travelling with Juliane from Lima to meet the father who was working in Pucallpa.

When Koepcke landed in the jungle, still strapped to her seat, she had a broken collar bone and an eye injury. Her first priority was to find her mother, who had been seated next to her on the plane. But her searches proved fruitless - she later found out her mother had died in the crash.

By using jungle survival skills she had previously learned from her father, Koepcke was soon able to locate a small stream. She then waded through knee-high water downstream from her landing site, relying on the survival principle her father had taught her that tracking downstream should eventually lead to civilization. The stream also provided clean water and a natural path through the dense rainforest vegetation. After nine days, she found a canoe, and a nearby shelter, where she waited. Hours later, the lumbermen who resided in the shelter arrived, and tended to her injuries and extensive bug infestations. The next morning they took her via a seven hour canoe ride down the river to a lumber station in Tournavista, from where she was airlifted with the help of a local pilot to her father and a hospital in Pucallpa. She subsequently fully recovered and became a Zoologist in Germany.^[5]

Koepcke's miraculous survival was featured in a television documentary film called Wings of Hope in 2000 by director Werner Herzog,^[6] who narrowly missed being on Flight 508 himself.