Avensa Flight 358

Avensa Flight 358 was a scheduled airline flight from Maturín Airport to Simón Bolívar International Airport in Venezuela that crashed on 22 December 1974 killing all 75 people on board.

Aircraft
The aircraft involved was a seven-year-old DC-9-14, which had been delivered to Avensa from McDonnell Douglas in 1967.

Accident
On 22 December 1974, the McDonnell Douglas DC-9, with 69 passengers and 6 crew on board, took off on runway 05 from Maturín Airport. Five minutes after takeoff the pilots declared an emergency to the control tower. The pilots lost control of the aircraft and crashed 32 km from the city of Maturín, Venezuela. All 75 on board the flight perished.

Cause
Venezuelan authorities and the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the accident. The cause of the accident was not determined, though an elevator malfunction was considered.

In popular culture
This accident was briefly featured on the Globovisión channel on 23 February 2008, due to the crash of Santa Bárbara Airlines Flight 518.

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