The passengers on the flight were General Omar Torrijos Herrera, mechanic Carlos E. Rivera, Sergeant Ricardo Machazek, bodyguard assistant Jaime Correa, and dentist Teresa Ferreiro.

At 11:30 p.m. of the same day, Panamanian authorities, with the support of the US military, found the first remains of the aircraft on Marta Hill, 3,100 feet above sea level.

say that Noriega was involved in this, because of his desires to kill Torrijos, in order to rule the country and the National Guard of Panama (which later became the Panamanian Defense Forces).

In 1983, the inquiry into the accident concluded that the pilots on charge of the flight were to blame for the lack of situational awareness and poor decision-making, which led to the crash.

The plane had no mechanical failure at the time of the crash and no signs explosives' residues and fuel contamination were detected during the inspection of the wreckage, as well of remains of a in-flight fire.The general public and relatives of the victims did not accept the conclusions of the final report, and they accused the military government of a cover-up; moreover, witnesses in Coclesito complained that investigators didn't consider their accounts regarding the crash, excluding their testimonies from the official report.

"[1] Those documents were not allowed as evidence in the trial, because the presiding judge agreed with the U.S. government's claim that their public mention would violate the Classified Information Procedures Act.

More recently, former businessman John Perkins alleged in his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man that Torrijos was assassinated by American interests, who had had a bomb planted aboard his aircraft (by CIA-organized operatives).

[2] The alleged motive is that some American business leaders and politicians strongly opposed the negotiations between Torrijos and a group of Japanese businessmen led by Shigeo Nagano, who were promoting the idea of a new, larger, sea-level canal for Panama.

The mountainous area where the wreckage of the airplane can be found is now part of Omar Torrijos National Park, which was opened in 1986 and is a major tourist attraction for its natural hiking trails.