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Air Crash Investigation 2021 | Mysterious Crash of Flight 201 (1992) - Copa Airlines Flight 201 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Tocumen International Airport in Panama City, Panama to Alfonso Bonilla Aragón International Airport in Cali, Colombia. On 6 June 1992, the Boeing 737-204 Advanced operating the route rolled, entered a steep dive, disintegrated in mid-air, and crashed into the jungle of the Darién Gap 29 minutes after takeoff, killing all 47 people on board. The in-flight break-up was caused by faulty instrument readings and several other contributing factors, including incomplete training.

Flight 201 is the deadliest accident in Panamanian aviation history, and the first and only fatal crash in the history of Copa Airlines.

The aircraft was a 12-year-old twin-engined Boeing 737-200 Advanced, registration HP-1205CMP, piloted by Captain Rafael Carlos Chial (53) and First Officer Cesareo Tejada (25) with 5 Flight Attendants on this flight.[4] Copa 201 was carrying 40 passengers and 7 crew. The jet was manufactured in 1980 and entered service with Britannia Airways bearing tail number G-BGYL. The aircraft was acquired by Copa Airlines as a result of the leasing agreement that both companies had in the 1990s, and the aircraft still bore a hybrid Britannia/Copa livery (still wore Britannia stripes, but with "Copa" titles on the forward fuselage and tail, and the Panamanian flag on the middle part of the fuselage) at the time of the accident.

Flight 201 took off from runway 21L at Tocumen International Airport in Panama City at 20:37 (8:37 p.m.) local time as a scheduled passenger flight to Cali, Colombia, with 40 passengers and seven crew members.[3] Among the passengers were Colombian merchants conducting business in Panama.[3] At 20:47 (8:47 p.m.), about 10 minutes after takeoff, Captain Chial contacted Panama City Air Traffic Control, requesting weather information. The controller reported that there was an area of very bad weather 30–50 miles (50-80 kilometres) from their position.

At 20:48 (8:48 p.m.), Captain Chial made another radio contact requesting permission from Panama City ATC to fly a different route due to the severe weather ahead. The new route would take the plane over Darién Province. 6 minutes later, at 20:54 (8:54 p.m.), Panama City Control Center received a third message from Captain Chial, who reported problems with the airplane and made a request to turn back to Tocumen, which was granted.

However, at 20:56 (8:56 p.m.), 2 minutes later, while flying at an altitude of 25,000 feet (7,620 metres), Flight 201 entered a steep dive at an angle of 80 degrees to the right and began to roll uncontrollably while accelerating towards the ground. Despite the attempts by Captain Chial and First Officer Tejada to level off, the airplane continued its steep dive, until it exceeded the speed of sound and started to break apart at 10,000 feet (3,048 metres). Most of the bodies had their clothes torn off and were thrown away from the aircraft.[3] Flight 201 crashed into a jungle area within the Darien Gap at 486 knots (560 miles per hour, 900 kilometres per hour), killing any remaining person still aboard.[5]

At 20:57 (8:57 p.m.), Tocumen Air Traffic Control tried unsuccessfully to make contact with flight until it received a radio message from a KLM DC-10 aircraft that was approaching the airport, reporting that they intercepted a distress signal from Flight 201's transponder in an area between the Colombian border and Darien Province, several kilometres away from their position. After several unsuccessful attempts to contact the lost plane, Tocumen ATC finally declared a full emergency in the airport and informed the Colombian ATC centre at Bogota about the missing plane. At dawn the next day, search aircraft were sent to Flight 201's last known position.[3][6]

After 8 hours, searchers spotted the first pieces of wreckage in the jungle of the Darien Gap.[7] Because of the remoteness of the area and the difficulty of access, it took rescue personnel 12 hours to reach the site.[3][8]

Because the bodies of the victims and various parts of the aircraft's fuselage were scattered in a radius of 10 km (6.2 miles), the recovery process was extremely difficult. After investigators reached the crash site, the investigation to find the cause of the crash began.

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