Thanks to Gustavo Sepúlveda L. of Chile for the photo's
Research and translation of events by webmaster Trev Morson
If anyone has additional photo's or more information regarding this C-47 and the accident that occurred or what has happened since, please e-mail me and I will include the findings on this page. I put in a considerable amount of research about this incident and the aircraft in question, but there are many blanks still to fill. I would sincerely appreciate your input. Thanks!
History of the C-47..
C-47B-1-DL c/n#20750 43-16284 D16Jul44 - S Atl ATC 30Jul4 Excl Inv Canal Zone -
YV-AZP TACA de Venezu( N1848M Madon Corp, Las Vegas, NV (Nov52
Chilean Govt E 03Nov53.FACH 960 Chilean Air Force. Crashed, Jan 1974
Yes, believe it or not!! ...A DC-3 House complete with a
chimney. Here is the story from a survivor of the crash, 24 years
later....
This DC-3 (actually a C-47) originally overturned during landing, January 19th 1974, 20 kilometers to the south Chaitén.
The wings of this DC-3 were found weeks later by the Army and Air
Service Search and Rescue (SAR) personnel who went looking for the C-47 "
flight T 212". But they never did find the fuselage?
The DC-3 had six crew on board and a civilian, a boy aged 10, Raul of the Villar
Andreuzzi, he was the son of a battalion commander and pilot of this DC-3 named Juan Raul of the
Villar Arrieta.
In spite of passed time, 24 years later, the young boy has fresh memories of the
accident. He was on a trip/vacation to Montt Port and at that time, the Air Force was in charge of
supplying places in South Chili that were separated from the regional capitals.
"The DC-3 was filled with milk jars and food" he said.
The young boy, now a publicist and age 34, remembered that he often accompanied his father during the
food distribution tasks in all the elements and in 10 days, the work was
completed in normal fashion without incident.
Nevertheless, the day of the accident changed time abruptly in the south of
Chile, "It all happened in a ½ hour". "When the airplane began to
fail, my papa piloting the DC-3, tried to follow a track toward a valley located between several hills. He
made a forced landing and the ship was almost completely buried in mud and badly
burning ".
The registry entry within the logbook of the Air Service Search and Rescue (SAR),
about this particular accident, notes that six people were on board, all military,
and were seated on the DC-3 in a way to keep the airplane trimmed. There were no victims,
but these people have the accident embedded in there memories forever . "In
the mind of a boy aged 10, you imagine that anything can happen,
especially when not fully understanding what is going on". "My papa explained to me that,
even with the complications of the situation, everything was under control ", said
Raul of the Villar Andreuzzi.
The publicist indicated that his father radioed to give an alert/mayday in order
to give exact coordinates where the accident happened, so that the authorities could activate
a search. " This happened about 4.00pm in the afternoon and 'customs officers?'
were sent and started looking for us in a jeep about 9.00pm that night (6 hours
later). The geography in that area is quite complicated and we had crashed in a valley between hills,
filled with vegetation and two meters (over 8 feet) in height and, we had
extreme and drastic bad weather.
Raul of the Villar Andreuzzi never returned to the scene of the accident, but
later found out through a friend, that an airplane fuselage had been turned into
a house by a group of peasants with a chimney on top of it near the place of the
original C-47 crash of 1974.
" Twelve years after this happened, a friend of mine traveled to the south and found
an aircraft fuselage turned into a house. It occurred to me that this 'could' be
the same airplane that I was involved with re the accident It seemed that
the fuselage was moved quite a ways from the original crash site and, for that reason the military
at the time, consisting of 14 inexperienced soldiers (who went looking for
flight T 212) only found the wings weeks later " said Raul of the Villar
Andreuzzi.
The 14 inexperienced soldiers of the Army that participated in the search
operation of flight " T 212" got 'lost' in the province of Palena, due to bad climatic conditions
and the search was abruptly suspended.
The flights of commercial airplanes to Montt Port were also cancelled leaving
more than twenty passengers stranded at the local airport of Chaitén. The helicopters
had no luck either, in that they could not defy the ferocious conditions of the
climate. They literally had to be anchored to the concrete of the local airport.
Even the helicopter of the Chilean Air Force, a Blackhawk, had to be moored to
the concrete structures within the airport.
The expert terrestrial units were no exception, they had to remain in camp at
Port Red Cardinal because of the terrible climatic conditions. Treacherous winds that reached
100 miles per hour, heavy rains, poor visibility and all electrical power shutdown in downtown Chaitén,
also placed danger on the security units that regularly patrol the mountainous
peaks of the Michimahuida.
During the15 day search all meteorological phenomena had been registered by the
search party, low clouds, terrential rain, hail, hurricane like winds, etc.,
Even the foreign P-3 Orion aircraft could only fly within a limited area of the
crash site, and the search flight itself lasted under an hour without any positive results. In addition,
the crew on board of the P-3 Orion, composed of 18 'expert' search specialists, would leave the country the
following day in the direction of Ecuador, with the purpose of returning part of the crew
and then fly on to Puerto Rico.
A note from the webmaster Trev Morson..
If anyone has additional photo's or information regarding this
C-47 and the accident that occurred, please e-mail
me and I will include the findings on this page. I put in a
considerable amount of research about this incident and the aircraft in
question, but there are many blanks still to fill. I would sincerely appreciate
your input. Thanks!
