Crash of TAN-SAHSA Flight 414

Date: October 22, 1989 • Location: Santa Ana, Honduras

TAN-SAHSA Flight 414 crashed in approach to Toncontín International Airport, killing 131 out of 146 people onboard.

TAN-SAHSA Flight 414 was a scheduled flight from Juan Santamaría International Airport, San José, Costa Rica, to Toncontín Airport in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, with a stopover at Augusto C. Sandino Airport in Managua, Nicaragua, on 21 October 1989. Flown with a Boeing 727-200, the flight crashed into a mountain at 7:30 A.M. local time after the pilots failed to follow a special landing procedure required for the arrival to the airport. The crash killed 131 passengers, leaving 15 survivors. While 20 passengers initially survived, five died before treatment, due to a delay in rescue personnel because of bad weather. It remains, as of 2025, the worst aviation accident on Honduran soil and in Central America at large; it is also the 15th deadliest involving a Boeing 727.