The crash of was the worst airline disaster in Panama in 50 years, and the worst disaster in the history of
Copa Airlines .
On the night of
June 6 ,
1992 , the aircraft, a
Boeing 737-204 registered as HP-1205, took off from
Tocumen International Airport in
Panama City for a flight to
Cali ,
Colombia with 40 passengers and 7 crew. Among its passengers were Colombian merchants conducting business in Panama. Because of severe tropical storms, the pilot requested permission from Tocumen air traffic control to fly a different route, taking the plane over
Darién Province . A few minutes later, the pilot radioed Tocumen air traffic control again, announcing his intention to return to his original route.
Two minutes after this call, Tocumen air traffic control lost all contact with Flight 201. At dawn the next day, search aircraft were sent to Flight 201's last known position. After 8 hours, searchers spotted the first piece of wreckage of the aircraft. Because of the remote area where the crash occurred, it took rescue personnel 12 hours to reach the site itself. However, there were no survivors for them to rescue.
The cockpit voice recorder was recovered and flown to Panama City, then flown to the United States for analysis by the
NTSB . However, NTSB analysts discovered that the tape was broken due to a maintenance error. Crash investigators had better luck with the flight data recorder, which showed the plane was in a high speed dive before it broke up. The trouble was later traced to a faulty attitude indicator, which misled the pilot into thinking he was going left, prompting him to turn right, leading to the dive, with no chance of recovery.
A special team consisting of personnel from
Copa Holdings ,
Boeing ,
Pratt & Whitney and NTSB worked together with Panamanian authorities on the investigation, which lasted for one year.
A year after the crash, the story of the crash of Flight 201 and its investigation was featured on the
PBS program ''
NOVA ''.
