[5] Mérida, a university and tourist town located high in the Andes mountains, is surrounded by higher terrain with night flights prohibited at the nearby Alberto Carnevalli Airport.

Shortly after take-off, the twin-turboprop slammed into a sheer 4,000-metre (13,000 ft) rock wall called "Indian Face" (Spanish: La Cara del Indio).

[6][7] Antonio Rivero, national director of civil defense, said rescuers had identified the site of the crash in the south-western state of Mérida.

Civil defense regional chief Gerardo Rojas stated that rescue crews were racing to the poorly-accessible crash site in the Andes Mountains.

Searchers spotted the wreckage of the plane carrying 43 passengers and 3 crew members in the mountains of western Venezuela on Friday, 22 February 2008.

The pilots wanted to meet the schedule after experiencing some delays, including losing track of time while having coffee in the terminal, then finding that the passengers were already on board the plane.

[15] From the moment power is turned on, the aircraft must sit stationary for 180 seconds for the AHRS to synchronize its settings, which is not an issue given how long the pilots will take to complete their checklists; instead, these pilots rushed their checklist, skipped some steps, and knowingly chose to begin their take-off rather than wait an additional 28 seconds for the AHRS to be synchronized.