The wreckage of flight 390 |
|
| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | May 30, 2008 |
| Type | Runway overrun |
| Site | Tegucigalpa, Honduras |
| Passengers | 118 |
| Crew | 6 |
| Injuries | 65 |
| Fatalities | 5 (including 2 on the ground)[1] |
| Survivors | 121 |
| Aircraft type | Airbus A320-233 |
| Operator | Grupo TACA |
| Tail number | EI-TAF |
| Flight origin | Toncontin International Airport |
| Destination | Miami International Airport |
TACA Flight 390 was a scheduled flight on May 30, 2008, by TACA Airlines from San Salvador, El Salvador, to Miami, Florida, United States, with intermediate stops at Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula in Honduras.[2] In this hull loss accident, the Airbus A320-233 (registration EI-TAF, c/n 1374) overran the runway after landing at Tegucigalpa's Toncontín International Airport and rolled out into a street, crashing into an embankment and smashing several cars in the process.
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The flight crew included Salvadoran Captain César D'Antonio. First Officer Juan Artero and all other crew members operating on the flight were Hondurans. The passengers consisted of [3]:
| Nationality | Passengers | Crew |
| Honduras | 60 | 5 |
| Costa Rica | 9 | 0 |
| Argentina | 8 | 0 |
| Guatemala | 7 | 0 |
| United States | 5 | 0 |
| Nicaragua | 3 | 0 |
| El Salvador | 3 | 1 |
| Mexico | 3 | 0 |
| Brazil | 2 | 0 |
| Canada | 2 | 0 |
| Colombia | 2 | 0 |
| Spain | 1 | 0 |
| Georgia | 1 | 0 |
| Germany | 1 | 0 |
| Italy | 1 | 0 |
| Uruguay | 1 | 0 |
| Total | 108 | 6 |
A list of passengers was provided in the fifth press release on the crash from TACA Airlines. This list was in the Spanish and English sections.[4]
Five people were confirmed dead as a result of the accident, including Captain D'Antonio. The deceased passengers were later confirmed as Jeanne Chantal Neele, wife of Brian Michael Fraser Neele (Brazil's ambassador to Honduras), and Nicaraguan businessman Harry Brautigam, president of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration; Brautigam died from a heart attack.[5] Ambassador Fraser Neele sustained injuries in the crash. The former head of the Honduran armed forces, General Daniel López Carballo, was also injured. There were two fatalities on the ground, one a taxi driver, in one of three vehicles crushed on the street by the aircraft. Mario Castillo, a survivor, said that the business class passengers sustained the most serious injuries.[1]
Honduran authorities delegated the investigation of the accident to the Autoridad de Aviación Civil of El Salvador as per the Convention on International Civil Aviation.[6] According to black box recordings and a report from the NTSB, the cause of the accident was a human error by the deceased pilot, who landed 900 meters (0.5 miles) beyond the landing marks and in the wrong direction (the tower had suggested to land the opposite way).