American Airlines Flight 965

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On the 20th December 1995, registration number N651AA, a Bowing 757 of scheduled flight from Miami International Airport to Alfonso Bonilla Aragon International Airport, American Airline Flight 965 was crashed into a mountain in Buga Colombia. 155 passengers and 8 crew members were on board but only 4 people and 1 dog survived. The flight was near Christmas so passengers are mainly tourists, businessmen and people returning home for holiday. Nicholas Tafuri, aged 57 was the captain while Donnie R. Williams, aged 39 was the first officer. They had more than 13,000 and 5,800 flight hours respectively and both had more than 2,200 hours in the Boeing 757. The captain was familiar with the route but it was the first officer’s first flight into Cali. Aircraft was scheduled to depart at 1640, but the flight was first delayed by 30 minutes due to a winter storm in the northeast US, to wait for connecting passengers to get on board. However, some passengers missed the connection and did not get on board. Flight 965 left the gate in Miami at 17:14, taxied to runway 27R and waited due to seasonal congestion which caused the flight to take off at 18:35 which was two hours late. Due to attacks in 1992 by anti-government guerrilla, Alfonso Bonilla Aragon International Airport air traffic controllers had no functional radar to monitor aircraft’s heading and altitude. Flight 965 crew members could only contact with the controller via radio and relied on the airport’s instrument approach system and area’s radio navigation aids. The approach route was formed by specific radio beacons which guided pilots to fly around the mountains and canyons that near Cali approach. The aircraft was equipped with a state-of-thr-art Flight Management System (FMS) and these beacons had already programmed into it before taking off, indicating pilots exactly what to do through out the whole flight

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