Varig Airlines Flight 1337

Varig Airlines Flight 1337

The missing aircraft on 1 February 2015
Disappearance
Date	15 February 2015 (2015-02-15); 9 years, 9 months ago
Summary	Inconclusive, some possible debris found
Site	Archrinian Ocean, probably northern
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Boeing 760-300
Operator	Varig Airlines
IATA flight No.	VA-1337
Call sign	Varid 1337
Registration	PR-VAD
Flight origin	Playadiestat International Airport
Destination	Seekant International Airport
Occupants	212
Passengers	204
Crew	8
Fatalities	212 (presumed)
Survivors	0 (presumed)

Varig Airlines Flight 1337 (VA-1337) was an international passenger flight operated by Varig Airlines that disappeared on 15 February 2015 while flying from Jean de Pequard Airport in Alaoyi to Hrvada National Airport in Hrvada. The crew of the Boeing 767-300 registered as PR-VAD last communicated with air traffic authorities (ATA) around 41 minutes after take off, over the Great Galian Sea. The aircraft was lost from ATA radar screens only four minutes later, but was tracked by military radar for over another hour, heading eastward from the planned flight path, crossing over Los Angeles again and out into the Achrinian Sea. It left radar range 250 miles north of Los Angeles. With 204 passengers and 8 crew presumed dead, the disappearance of Flight 1337 was the deadliest incident in Los Angeles aeronautical history.

The search became the most expensive search in history, costing millions of kuna. It initially focused on the Great Galian Sea, before analysis of automated communications with a communications satellite in orbit indicated a possible crash in the northern Achrinian Ocean. The lack of official information was criticized by many, especially in Alaoyi, which was the nationality of many of the victims and the government responsible for the investigation. Several possible pieces of debris washed ashore on the southern coast of Stratea during 2016 and 2017, some pieces of which were considered "possibly" from the aircraft. However, after a three year search of over 150,000 sq kilometers of ocean, the aircraft was never located and government search activities were suspended in December of 2018. A second search in December of 2019 by private contractors also failed to turn up any evidence of the plane within 6 months.

Relying mostly on analysis of data from the Inmarsat satellite with which the aircraft last communicated, the government spokesmen originally proposed initially that a hypoxia event was the most likely cause given the available evidence, although no consensus has been reached concerning this theory among investigators. At various stages of the investigation, possible hijacking scenarios were considered, including crew involvement, and suspicion of the airplane's cargo manifest; many disappearance theories regarding the flight have also been reported by the media. The Alaoyian Ministry of Transport's final report from July 2018 was inconclusive, but highlighted Alaoyi ATA's failures to attempt to communicate with the aircraft shortly after its disappearance. In the absence of a definitive cause of disappearance, air transport industry safety recommendations and regulations citing Flight 1337 have been intended mostly to prevent a repetition of the circumstances associated with the loss. These include increased battery life on underwater locator beacons, lengthening of recording times on flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders, and new standards for aircraft position reporting over the open ocean.