Two Spaniards Died in the Nazca Sightseeing Crash, on a Route With a Record

Thirteen people died when a Cessna Grand Caravan C-208 operated by Aerodiana crashed in a field near Socos, in the Pueblo Nuevo district, about two kilometres from Nazca airport. The aircraft had left Pisco, in the Ica region, around midday on Saturday to fly tourists over the Nazca Lines, and came down shortly after one in the afternoon. Eleven passengers and two Peruvian crew were on board and nobody survived.

Seven of the dead were Italian tourists from two families. Two were Spanish, two German, and two were the Peruvian crew. Police Major Jorge Andrade said that given the severity of the accident there were no survivors, and that four bodies had been recovered at the time he spoke.

President Keiko Fujimori offered condolences and said the transport and communications ministry was carrying out the corresponding investigation. Aerodiana, which has run these flights for close to two decades, said it would cooperate fully with investigators.

The uncomfortable part is that this route has a history. A sightseeing aircraft crashed in 2022, killing seven. In 2010 four British visitors and two Peruvian crew died in a separate crash. Three fatal accidents in sixteen years on a flight that exists purely so that visitors can see geoglyphs from the air is a pattern rather than a run of bad luck.

For Spain the immediate matter is consular: two families needing repatriation and information from a district most of them will never have heard of. The wider question belongs to Peru, and it is whether a tourist attraction that can only be experienced properly from a small aircraft is being flown to a standard that matches how many people want to see it.