LAPA – Líneas Aéreas Privadas Argentinas

An airport in the middle of the city, a runway that ends right at a main road, and a Boeing 737 that doesn’t get airborne on an August evening: the accident of LAPA Flight 3142 on August 31, 1999 is burned deep into Argentina’s memory. Yet LAPA was far more than that one evening. In the 1990s the private airline from Buenos Aires shook up the domestic market with low fares, at times flew as far as Atlanta, and disappeared in 2003 after an economic crisis and several changes of ownership. Here you can read how LAPA grew, what happened on Flight 3142, what the investigators found – and how to identify old LAPA photos correctly.

LAPA at a glance

LAPA – Líneas Aéreas Privadas Argentinas – was a historic airline from Buenos Aires. The name says it all: “Private Argentine Airlines” deliberately set itself apart from the long state-owned Aerolíneas Argentinas and its domestic sister Austral, which divided the market between them for a long time.

LAPA was founded in 1977. At first it flew only within Buenos Aires Province, in 1978 it received permission for charter flights, and in 1979 scheduled service began. Around 1980 the largest shareholder was the businessman Claudio Zichy-Thyssen. In 1984 Gustavo Deutsch took over the airline and ran it until the crisis of the early 2000s.

Its main base was the close-to-downtown Aeroparque Jorge Newbery (AEP) on the bank of the Río de la Plata, from which almost all domestic traffic in Buenos Aires departs. For international flights, LAPA also used Ezeiza (EZE) international airport.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code MJ: appeared in flight numbers, on tickets and on departure boards – the accident flight ran as MJ 3142.
• ICAO code LPR: identified LAPA in the air traffic control flight plan.
• Callsign LAPA: On the radio, crews simply used the airline’s short name.
• Registration LV-: The aircraft were registered in Argentina.

One peculiarity with old records: between 2001 and 2002 the airline operated under the brands ARG and AIRG. If you sort flight schedules or photos from that period, you should know these names. You can find more about the stories behind radio callsigns in the article on airline callsigns.

From turboprop to 737: the fleet over time

In its first years, LAPA flew small types for regional service. These included the Brazilian Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante, the box-shaped Short 330 and the Japanese NAMC YS-11. In January 1987, LAPA became the first operator of the Saab 340 in South America – at the time a still-young turboprop from Saab.

The big leap came in 1993 with the first Boeing 737-200. From 1994, Argentina opened its domestic market more to competition, and LAPA grew quickly. By the end of 1996 the airline had won around 30 percent of the domestic market. At times a BAC One-Eleven also flew for LAPA.

Type	Role at LAPA	Spotter tip
Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante	Early regional flights	Small twin-engine turboprop, low wing
Short 330 / NAMC YS-11	Regional service in the early days	Short: box-shaped fuselage, high wing; YS-11: twin-engine turboprop from Japan
Saab 340	1987 to the mid-1990s, first operator in South America	Twin-engine turboprop, low wing with a pointed nose
Boeing 737-200 / -200 Advanced / -200C	Backbone of the domestic fleet from 1993	Slim, long JT8D engines under the wing
Boeing 737-700	Modern addition in the late 1990s	Round CFM56 engines with a flattened underside
Boeing 757-200	From the mid-1990s, in service until about 2001	Long, slender fuselage, tall landing gear
Boeing 767-300ER	On the Atlanta route from 1999	The airline’s only widebody jet

According to an overview of the historic fleet, LAPA flew a total of 14 Boeing 737-200s, nine 737-700s, three 757-200s and one 767-300ER – not all at the same time. The manufacturer of the jet fleet was almost always Boeing. How to tell the 737 generations apart in photos is shown in the guide Boeing 737 Original, Classic, NG and MAX: how to tell them apart.

Discount fares at home, a trip to Atlanta

In the 1990s, LAPA presented itself as a low-cost alternative to the established carriers. Argentine sources call it the country’s first low-cost airline – with reservations, because LAPA was not a classic low-cost carrier with pure point-to-point logic. The network was centered on Buenos Aires and at times reached Montevideo and Punta del Este in Uruguay as well as Santiago de Chile, São Paulo, Florianópolis, Puerto Montt and Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

In 1999, LAPA took the step into long-haul: with a Boeing 767-300ER the airline flew to Atlanta. It did not last long. As of April 1, 2001, LAPA gave up its own Atlanta flights and relied on a codeshare with Delta Air Lines instead.

Flight 3142: the evening at Aeroparque

On August 31, 1999, Flight 3142 was due to depart from Aeroparque for Córdoba shortly before 9 p.m. local time. There were 100 people on board: 95 passengers and five crew members. The aircraft was a Boeing 737-204C with the registration LV-WRZ. The “C” stands for Convertible – a version with a large cargo door that can be switched between passenger and cargo service.

The aircraft had a long history: first flight in April 1970, delivered to the British Britannia Airways as G-AXNB, from 1990 with the French TAT as F-GGPB, and with LAPA since December 1996. At the time of the accident it was a good 29 years old and had accumulated around 64,500 flight hours and 38,680 flight cycles.

The takeoff was on runway 13. Even during the takeoff roll, the takeoff configuration warning sounded in the cockpit – a signal that warns the crew when the aircraft is not set up for takeoff. The reason: the flaps were not extended. Without flaps, the wing does not generate enough lift at takeoff speed. The pilots still did not abort the takeoff.

The 737 did not get airborne. It overran the end of the runway, broke through the airport fence, crossed Avenida Rafael Obligado, hit a car and slammed into construction machinery at a road works site and a median strip. Leaking fuel and a damaged gas regulator station caught fire, and the aircraft burned out.

65 people died: 63 on board, including both pilots, and two people in the car that was hit. At least 34 people were injured. The rear right door jammed, a cabin crew member opened the rear left door under difficult conditions, and some passengers escaped through an opening in the fuselage. Airport firefighters, the federal police and the naval prefecture (Prefectura Naval) fought the fire. To this day the accident counts among the worst air disasters in Argentina. How safety areas behind the runway end are meant to mitigate such overruns is explained in the article on runway safety and EMAS.

What the JIAAC found

The accident was investigated by the Argentine agency JIAAC (Junta de Investigaciones de Accidentes de Aviación Civil). It was supported by the US agency NTSB as well as specialists from Boeing, the engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney and the FAA; the flight recorders were analyzed in Washington. The JIAAC presented its final report on May 18, 2000.

The result was clear: the flap jackscrews were in the retracted position, as was the flap lever in the cockpit, and the flight data recorder also showed no flaps. According to the JIAAC, the immediate cause was that the crew had forgotten to extend the flaps for takeoff and did not heed the warning about the wrong configuration. According to the report, the engines and maintenance were fine, and the investigators ruled out a bird strike.

More interesting – and more bitter – are the contributing factors the report lists:

• lack of discipline by the crew, who did not abort the takeoff despite the warning,
• private conversations that got mixed up with working through the checklist, so the “flaps” item was skipped,
• personal, family and financial stress on both pilots,
• inadequate psychological screening and earlier negative assessments in flight operations that had gone without consequences,
• and a design of the 737’s warning system that technically did not prevent a takeoff despite the alarm.

That makes Flight 3142 a textbook case of what aviation calls crew resource management: two experienced pilots, a working aircraft, a warning that triggers exactly right – and the catastrophe happens anyway because the procedures in the cockpit don’t take hold. You know a similar pattern of faulty takeoff preparation from the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 in Washington in 1982, where ice on the wings and incorrectly reading engine instruments came together.

The criminal case: twelve years without a result

In parallel with the accident investigation, the justice system investigated. Hundreds of witnesses were questioned, mainly LAPA pilots and cabin crew. Court documents and press reports described careless checks of pilots and the allegation that one pilot’s license had expired. It was also said that LAPA did not have a revised operations manual approved by the Air Force oversight at the time of the accident.

For many relatives, the case is therefore still a symbol of impunity today. It was kept in the public eye above all by the former LAPA pilot Enrique Piñeyro. He had left the airline in June 1999, a few weeks before the disaster, out of concern for safety, and later processed the events in the feature film “Whisky Romeo Zulu” – the title alludes to the registration LV-WRZ. The documentary series “Mayday – Air Disaster” also covered the accident.

The end: crisis, ARG, AIRG and shutdown

The accident badly damaged LAPA’s reputation, but the end came mainly from the economy. With the Argentine crisis from 2001, the dollar-denominated aircraft leases became unaffordable. LAPA returned the 757 and the 767 to the lessors and filed for creditor protection in May 2001.

In September 2001, the group of the businessman Eduardo Eurnekian took over the airline and renamed it ARG. Because the abbreviation clashed with Aerolíneas Argentinas, it was called AIRG from mid-2002. In August 2002, the Bolivian AeroSur and four Argentine investors bought the company, and the name LAPA returned. That didn’t save the airline: in the end the fleet consisted of only five 737-200 Advanced, three of which were serviceable. When lessors took back three aircraft, operations ended in April 2003.

The place of the private challengers was later taken by others: first carriers like Andes Líneas Aéreas, years later low-cost airlines like Flybondi.

Spotting LAPA today – is it still possible?

As an airline, LAPA has been history since 2003. For you, these routes remain:

With historic pictures, the fleet helps with dating: a YS-11, Short 330 or Bandeirante in LAPA colors dates from the 1980s or earlier, a Saab 340 from before 1997. A 757 points to the years from about 1995, a 737-700 or 767 to the late 1990s through 2002. How to find out an aircraft’s year of manufacture is shown in How old is this aircraft?, and Spotting vintage aircraft in the sky helps with placing older types.

How to recognize LAPA

Common mix-ups

• Equating LAPA with Austral – Austral was the domestic subsidiary of the Aerolíneas group and thus the direct competitor.
• Taking ARG for Aerolíneas Argentinas – “ARG” and “AIRG” were brands of the taken-over LAPA; exactly this name conflict led to the second renaming.
• Filing Flight 3142 under engine or maintenance problems – according to the JIAAC, the engines and maintenance worked; what mattered was the flaps that were not extended.
• “No warning system on board” – the warning sounded, but it was not heeded.
• Taking LAPA for a modern low-cost carrier – the network ran through Buenos Aires, and with the 757 and 767 LAPA also flew classic network routes.
• Assigning every LV- 737-200 from the 1990s to LAPA – Aerolíneas, Austral and other Argentine airlines also flew the type.

Conclusion

LAPA was the private challenger that Argentine aviation needed in the 1990s: low fares, a growing 737 fleet and even a foray into long-haul. But the airline is remembered above all for Flight 3142. A forgotten flap setting, an ignored warning and an environment in which warning signs were overlooked for too long cost 65 people their lives. The economic crisis then ended the airline itself in 2003.