Viasa Flight 742
| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | 16 March 1969 |
| Summary | Faulty Temperature Sensors, Overweight |
| Site | Maracaibo, Venezuela |
| Passengers | 74 |
| Crew | 10 |
| Fatalities |
84 (aircraft) 71 (on ground) 155 (total) |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft type | McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 |
| Operator | Viasa |
| Registration | YV-C-AVD |
| Flight origin | Aeropuerto Grano de Oro, Maracaibo |
| Destination | Miami International Airport, Miami, Florida |
Viasa Flight 742 was an international, scheduled passenger flight from Maracaibo, Venezuela to Miami, Florida that crashed on 16 March 1969. After taking off, the DC-9-30 hit a series of power lines before crashing into the La Trinidad section of Maracaibo. All 84 people on board perished, as well as 71 on the ground.
The DC-9 involved in the crash was on lease from Avensa and had only been in service a few weeks.[1]
The cause of the crash was attributed to faulty sensors along the runway and the take-off calculations made from the erroneous information they had provided, which resulted in an aircraft overloaded by more than 5,000 pounds[2] for the prevailing conditions. Only two days after the crash, Venezuela's Public Works Minister ascribed runway length as a contributing factor in the disaster.[3]
When Flight 742 crashed it was the first loss of a DC-9-30, and it remains the deadliest accident involving that class of aircraft. It was also the deadliest accident in Venezuela until West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 (operated by a McDonnell Douglas MD-80, the DC-9's successor aircraft) crashed over thirty-six years later. At the time, the crash was the world's deadliest civil air disaster.[4]
One of the people who perished in the Viasa Flight 742 crash was San Francisco Giant pitching prospect Néstor Chávez.[5]
References
- ↑ Accident description for YV-C-AVD at the Aviation Safety Network
- ↑ Crashed plane said overloaded
- ↑ Gero, David (1996). Aviation Disasters Second Edition. Patrick Stephens Limited. p. 88.
- ↑ Disasters: The Worst Ever
- ↑ Zimniuch, Fran (2007). The Untimely Deaths of Baseball's Stars and Journeymen. First Taylor Trade Publishing. pp. 23–24.
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