The Interior Secretary Mauricio Lopez confirmed that Gen. Rudy Ortiz, the head of the Guatemalan military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as 4 other military officers died in the crash. Gen. Braulio Mayen, commander of the army’s 5th Brigade, was one of the other victims identified by Lopez.

The accident happened when the high level military officials were flying to the village of Ixquisis to inspect the troops. “They couldn’t land in Ixquisis and instead decided to go to the military base in Las Palmas and in that trajectory the helicopter crashed,” Lopez added.

Ortiz, 51, was due to retire next year after serving the army for 32 years. President Otto Perez Moline, a retired general, expressed his grief over Ortiz’s death and said, “His hard work and dedication during his military career served to strengthen the institution.”

The cause of the accident is under investigation.

The post Head of Guatemalan Armed Forces Died in Helicopter Crash first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.

A fatal plane crash in Guatemala killed two Americans on Tuesday April 1, 2014.

The Cessna T210L Turbo Centurion #L732JY crashed into a mountain in El Carrizal village, Esquipulas Palo Gordo municipality, San Marcos department of Guatemala, located some 250 km towards west of Guatemala City.

The spokesman for the Departmental Municipal Firefighters, Cecilio Chacaj said that the plane was flying from Tapachula, Mexico and was headed to Roatan Honduras. According to Chacaj, “the accident could have been a mechanical failure or due to the poor visibility that was in the area where the plane crashed. It is an area where there is heavy fog and rain at the time of the accident,” He identified the deceased as George St. John, 65, and Sinchuc Cole, 58. The dead bodies have still not been recovered as the there is no land access to the crash site.

The rescue personnel said that the details about the victims could not be found as they had U.S. Passports. The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala maintains that they are trying to confirm the identity of the victims.

 
Corrections:
* A subscriber to this blog has said that the victims were George and Colleen Simchuk, who lived in Dover, close to Sandpoint ID.

They were flying to Honduras and Guatemala for the purpose of conducting a volunteer pilot work assignment in making aerial surveys to assess deforestation and other environmental issues in the Central American area.

The post Guatemala Plane Crash Kills 2 Americans first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.

Andrés Berger was the copilot.

The flight took off at 17:48 on Monday but lost communication with ATC shortly afterward. Residents near the impact zone heard an explosion at 18:00 hours.

A friend of the pilot said he had 15,000 hours in the cockpit.

The accident is under investigation.

The post Guatemala: Chopper Crash first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.

The plane was not authorized to fly in Guatemala, and crashed near the border of Mexico. No homes, buildings or outbuildings were damaged. The plane crashed in a field.

Neither the pilot nor any of the five passengers survived. Everyone aboard was apparently Mexican. Identification of the bodies will be by DNA. One description says all the young men aboard were corpulent.

Locals heard the plane crash, but access to the scene is difficult, surrounded by trees ad crops in rural San Marcos, NW Guatemala. A radio broadcast by the mayor of Ixchiguán, Augusto Merida, said the small plane fell in Nuevo Porvenir. The plane is a total loss. One wallet was found with the name Eduardo Castillo Perez. Some luggage was also found. According to flight records:

Rubén Villeda Sáinz, de 66 años;
Pilot Eduardo Castillo Pérez;
Antonio de Jesús Sánchez, 30;
Jesús Enrique Borge Luna
José Luis Camarena Rodríguez, 39;
Elio Brito Lari Cechia, 46. Venezuela

Volunteer Firefighters told local radio that the identification was based on documentation from Nuevo Porvenir.

Authorities seized $2 million aboard the plane. The luggage contained a gun, jewelry and money in pesos and dollars.

The investigation is underway.
Video below

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What: IFL Group/Contract Air Cargo Convair CV-440 en route from Miami to Guatemala City
Where: Guatemala City
When: May 11th 2012
Who: 2 crew
Why: The Contract Air Cargo freight flight landing in Guatemala City on Friday had a less than stellar landing.

On landing, the nose gear crumpled. After one of the propellers impacted the runway, it disengaged. Remarkably, no one was reported as injured, although the plane may be a write-off.

Civil aviation spokeswoman Oddra Lacs said that the Airport was shut down for four hours after the crash-landing about 100 yards the cargo hangers.

The certificate of the IFL GROUP INC plane was issued on 12/13/1994

The post Contract Air Cargo Freight Convair Damaged in Guatemala Landing first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.

No residents were at home at the time of the crash. Three Guatemalans and one American were injured in the crash. The American broke his tibia and fibula. The injured were taken to National Hospital. The American was identified only as Michael; the others were Juan Carlos Menendez, 40, Andres Turcios, 32, and Octavio Gordillo, 52.

The helicopter was broken in two by the impact. The translation of an unverified newspaper report said that the pilot had been flying low when a bird hit the rotors.

The post Helicopter crashes into houses in Antigua, 4 Injured first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.

The DAC says the plane was having mechanical problems. Witnesses report seeing the plane “rocking” and emitting black smoke, before it crashed.

The post Small Plane Crashes into Guatamalan Zoo, 3 fatalities, Zookeeper Burned first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.

According to eyewitnesses, the helicopter lost power near the village of Quebrada Seca, in the vicinity of the town of San Luis.

Three were crew—two lieutenants and a specialist—and the seven passengers were a flight lieutenant, two second lieutenants of aviation, a second lieutenant of infantry, two specialists and an aére-military policeman. (José Everardo Portillo Salazar, Manuel Ovalle Garcia and Armando Barrientos Mynor, the lieutenants Jose Alejandro Rodriguez and Flores Be Zechariah, Amilcar specialist Humberto Leon and Manuel Escobar Axpuac, Emerson Reyes and Paolo Rivera Martinez Galindo Elbu Stuart, One person was unidentified.)

Pilot Lieutenant Everaldo Portillo had more than 700 flight hours.

The first chopper apparently hit power lines which apparently helped break the fall. It crashed in the El Guarumo in Semox village on Guatemala’s Caribbean coast ( Livingston, Izabal). Three injured survivors of the original crash were taken to del Hospital Roosevelt in Morales, Izabal. The survivors of the first crash were listed as Carlos Larios Aguilar, 48, the pilot of the ship John Paul Moran, 52, and mechanic Jose Gomez, 28. The first chopper was #TG-SAN, also out of Petén.

The post Guatamalan Rescue Chopper Crashes after Attempted Rescue first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.

Four people inside the house were shocked by the noise, but no one was hurt.

George’s Point of View

We offer our condolences to the families of Hector Ramos, Rafael Araneda, Claudia Porras, Joseph Godoy, Juan Roberto Brenes and Helmuth Wintzer

The post Six Fatalities in Guatemalan Crash first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.

What: Helicopter en route from Guatemala’s northern El Peten Province
Where: rainforest in the rural province of Verapaz, some 185 miles (300 kms) northeast of the capital
Guatemala City in northern Guatemala
When: Thursday
Who: Spanish businessman Virgilio Casado was piloting the helicopter along with fellow Spaniards Jose Luis Briz Mateo and Juan Calvo Torre. Carlos Sigfrido Hurtarte Rivas, a Guatemalan citizen, also died in the crash.
Why: Cause is under investigation but likely heavy winds and rain

After a search delayed by bad weather, the bodies arrived in Guatemala City on Friday. A local aeronautics official believes the helicopter ran into a cloud and lost orientation and control (by a pilot unaccustomed to flying by instruments.)

The post 3 Spaniards 1 Guatemalan die in Helicopter Crash. first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.