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Sightseeing Plane Crashes Over Nazca Lines, Killing 13

Peru's aviation authority has opened a probe to examine whether strong winds or operator decisions played a role in flights to the UNESCO site.

Overview

  • A small tour aircraft crashed after departing Pisco on Saturday, killing all 13 people aboard, including 11 foreign tourists and the two pilots.
  • Local reports identify the tourists as seven Italians, two Germans and two Spaniards and say initial recovery teams removed four bodies from the wreckage.
  • Peruvian authorities and the civil aviation regulator have launched an active investigation and have not yet released a technical cause for the crash.
  • Media reporting names Aerodiana as the reported operator of the flight and investigators are looking into recent strong winds and the cancellation of some tours the day before the accident.
  • The Nazca Lines are a UNESCO World Heritage site and aerial sightseeing is a common way to view the geoglyphs, a fact that raises immediate questions about safety and oversight for such tours.