By: Camilo Perdomo

My apartment is located on a 10th floor on a building half way up the mountains. Strategic location to view the airplanes flying out of El Dorado. Standard departure procedures (BOSA 1 transition GIR) require pilots to swing right over Romeo NDB beacon and head to the south. High terrain hazard exists some 10 NM runway heading 130. My apartment is located on the mountains TAME flight 422 hit that afternoon.

I remember that afternoon, I was doing some physics homework, it was around 6 pm, looking out the window towards the city and thinking what a terrible afternoon that was. Gray, windy and with a drizzle going on since early that morning that hadn't stopped. Clouds were low, and looking to the top of the mountain I could only see a red beacon light that came from a communications antenna located at the top of the mountain.

I remember watching an Avianca Boeing 757 takeoff and swing right towards the south and disappearing 3 seconds later into the low clouds. Then I saw another Boeing 727 take off. I was watching it and trying to figure out what airline it was. His rate of climb was not high. He had landing lights on and gear up. Still couldn't see the paint scheme on the plane.

The plane continued to fly runway heading. As he continued to fly to me, I thought it was strange he hadn't turned over Romeo. He was headed towards the mountains. Then the low clouds swallowed the plane but I could still see his lights. I thought maybe he was executing another departure I didn't know about. I couldn't really see the plane but the lights were still visible through the clouds.

As the plane flew over my head, I ran to the next room which has a view to the mountains. Then the roar of the engines made me think he had made it passed the mountain. I couldn't see his lights now probably because he was headed away from me. Then I saw what I thought for a split second was a lightning and 1 second later, I heard this dry explosion that literally shook every single window of the building. I thought it was a lightning and thunder and continued to think so for 5 minutes. But then I realized I had stopped hearing the roar of the 727's engines right after that thunder.

I Turned the TV and the radio on to see if anything came up. No more thunders or lightnings, just a few sirens slowly gave way to what I was about to hear 30 minutes later on the news. TAME flight 422, a 727-200 operating for Air France had crashed few minutes after takeoff into a mountain a few miles from El Dorado. As soon as I heard the news, I looked up and saw no flames, smelled no smoke.

The next day, all I could see was a black trail of burned and cut trees ending at a big black circle with very small pieces of white debris all around. A big yellow piece was lying in the center of this circle apparently hanging from trees. Why didn't he execute his departure as he should have?

[Editor's Note: For more information on the events surrounding the crash of TAME Flight 422, please view the accident record in the AirDisaster.Com Accident Database.]