A tourist plane carrying European visitors to the Nazca Lines crashed outside Nazca on Saturday, killing 13 people and putting Aerodiana under immediate scrutiny. Peru's Transportation Ministry ordered the airline to suspend all flights on Sunday while investigators work through what went wrong.
The dead included seven Italian citizens, two Germans, two Spaniards, the pilot, Américo Salazar, and the co-pilot, Irenka Guanilo del Carpio. Luke Hylands said his family was still trying to process the loss, giving the crash a personal edge far beyond the official count.
Aerodiana has offered flights over the Nazca Lines for 14 years, making the crash a blow to a niche tourism business built around one of Peru's best-known attractions. The flight had taken off from Ica and was carrying visitors to see the geoglyphs that can be fully observed only from the sky or from viewing towers.
The government said the crew reported a mechanical failure before radio contact was lost, but it has not said whether that problem caused the crash. That gap matters because the suspension order will stay in place until investigations are completed and authorities verify compliance with aviation rules, procedures and operating requirements.
For now, the unanswered question is not whether Aerodiana can keep flying, but what the mechanical failure was and whether it was the point where the flight became unrecoverable. Until that is established, the company remains grounded and the families left behind are waiting for an explanation that matches the scale of the loss.
