TACA

TACA may refer to:

TACA Flight 110

TACA Flight 110 was an international scheduled airline flight operated by TACA Airlines, traveling from Belize to New Orleans. On May 24, 1988, the Boeing 737-300 lost power in both engines but its pilots made a successful deadstick landing on a grass levee, with no one aboard sustaining more than minor injuries. The captain of the flight, Carlos Dardano of El Salvador, had only one eye due to crossfire on a small flight to El Salvador, which was undergoing a civil war at the time.

Flight history

The aircraft, a Boeing 737-3T0 (tail number N75356, serial number 23838), had first flown on January 26, 1988, and had been in service with TACA for about two weeks. On this day, the flight proceeded normally, taking off from Belize City's Philip S. W. Goldson International Airport and flying over the Gulf of Mexico toward the Louisiana coast.

The airliner was the 1,505th Boeing 737 manufactured, and was originally acquired by TACA from Polaris Aircraft Leasing in May 1988.

The captain of the flight was Carlos Dardano. At just 29 years of age, Dardano had already amassed 13,410 flight hours. Almost 11,000 of these hours were as pilot in command. The first officer, Dionisio Lopez, was also very experienced, with more than 12,000 flight hours under his belt. Captain Arturo Soley, an instructor pilot, was also in the cockpit, monitoring the performance of the new 737.

TACA Flight 390

TACA Flight 390 was a scheduled flight on May 30, 2008, by TACA Airlines from San Salvador, El Salvador, to Miami, Florida, United States, with intermediate stops at Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula in Honduras. In this hull loss accident, the Airbus A320-233 (registration EI-TAF, c/n 1374) overran the runway after landing at Tegucigalpa's Toncontín International Airport and rolled out into a street, crashing into an embankment and smashing several cars in the process.

Passengers

The flight crew included Salvadorans Captain Cesare Edoardo D'Antonio Mena and First Officer Juan Rodolfo Artero Arevalo. All cabin crew members operating on the flight were Hondurans. The passengers consisted of:

A list of passengers was provided in the fifth press release on the crash from TACA Airlines. This list was in the Spanish and English sections.

Five people were confirmed dead as a result of the accident, including Captain D'Antonio. The deceased passengers were later confirmed as Jeanne Chantal Neele, wife of Brian Michael Fraser Neele (Brazil's ambassador to Honduras), and Nicaraguan businessman Harry Brautigam, president of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration; Brautigam died from a heart attack. Ambassador Fraser Neele sustained injuries in the crash. The former head of the Honduran armed forces, General Daniel López Carballo, was also injured. There were two fatalities on the ground, one a taxi driver, in one of three vehicles crushed on the street by the aircraft. Mario Castillo, a survivor, said that the business class passengers sustained the most serious injuries.

Avianca El Salvador

Avianca El Salvador, formerly Transportes Aereos del Continente Americano, simply known as TACA Airlines is an airline owned by the Synergy Group based in El Salvador. As TACA, it was the flag carrier of El Salvador. As Avianca El Salvador, it is one of the seven nationally branded airlines (Avianca Ecuador, Avianca Honduras, etc.) in the Avianca Holdings group of Latin American airlines. This Airline has been in operation for 75 years.

TACA owned and operated five other airlines in Central America, and its name was originally an acronym meaning Transportes Aéreos Centroamericanos (Central American Air Transport), but this was changed to Transportes Aéreos del Continente Americano (Air Transport of the American Continent), reflecting its expansion to North, Central, South America and the Caribbean.

On October 7, 2009, it was announced that TACA would merge with Avianca, though TACA maintained its name until the merger was officially completed on May 21, 2013.

TACA Airlines was the second-oldest continuously operating airline brand in Central America and the Caribbean after Cubana de Aviación.