Aviateca Flight 901

Aviateca Flight 901 was operated by a Boeing 737-2H6 (registration number: N125GU). The aircraft was the 1,114th Boeing 737 built The captain was 39-year-old Axel Byron Miranda Herrera and the first officer was 36-year-old Víctor Francisco Sandoval Salguero. Both pilots were retired pilots of the Guatemalan Air Force; the captain served in the air force from 1976 to 1986 while the first officer served from 1980 to 1991. The captain joined Aviateca in 1986 and the first officer joined the airline in 1992. Miranda had 9,828 flight hours while Sandoval had 4,696 flight hours. Two foreign ambassadors to Nicaragua were on the flight: Palle Marker from Denmark and Genaro Antonio Mucciolo from Brazil. Two retired Federal Aviation Administration inspectors were also onboard. == Accident ==

Flight 901 originated at Miami International Airport in Miami, United States and its destination was Juan Santamaría International Airport in San José, Costa Rica; it had three stopovers on its route: La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City, Guatemala, Comalapa International Airport in San Salvador, El Salvador, and Augusto C. Sandino International Airport in Managua, Nicaragua. Its departure from Guatemala City was delayed by 2 hours, taking off at 6:20 p.m. CST. Due to heavy rain and thunderstorms in the area, the captain deviated from the standard approach to Comalapa International Airport: Airway G346. The captain sought to intercept the ILS glide slope for Runway 07 rather than the typical ILS glide slope for Runway 25. south from the municipality of Tepetitán, Rescue vehicles were unable to reach the crash site due to poor road conditions and fog also prevented helicopters from reaching the site. The crash site spanned a area at an altitude of MSL. Local police officer José María Gómez stated that "There were corpses wherever you looked, and body parts everywhere [...] on the rocks and in the trees. The plane was totally destroyed". Locals in the vicinity of the crash reported hearing three loud explosions and that they witnessed fire in the sky, with some believing that the San Vicente volcano was erupting. Gladys Miranda de Valencia, the captain's sister, reported that Aviateca had told her that the captain had informed the airline of "unspecified mechanical problems" prior to the accident. Aviateca president Frederick Melville initially attributed the crash to bad weather, and Aviateca spokesman Mauricio Rodríguez stated that it was raining "very, very hard" at the time of the accident. == Cause ==

Shortly after the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board sent a representative to assist in the investigation, particularly in analyzing the aircraft's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder. == Aftermath ==

After the accident, Aviateca offered to pay the families of the victims US$571.42 (then equivalent to 5,000 Salvadoran colones, and ) each in compensation, but the offer was refused. Both Aviateca and TACA Airlines (the parent company of Aviateca) faced lawsuits from 21 families regarding the accident which were later settled out of court for undisclosed amounts. In 2003, a court in San Vicente ruled that the controllers on duty were not responsible for the accident. == Notable victims ==

• Luis Procuna, Mexican bullfighter == See also ==