"There's so much money on this plane that not even God can run out"

With the success of the F-27 Friendship, Fokker would develop, in partnership with Fairchild Hiller, an elongated version of the model in the mid-1950s with the aim of offering a replacement for the Douglas DC-3. Only 78 aircraft would be built, named FH-227. Several airlines around the world would operate the FH-227, including TABA.

Founded in 1976, TABA (Transportes Aéreos Regional da Bacia Amazônica) grew rapidly in the early 1980s, driven by the monopoly on regional aviation exploration in the North of the country (through the Integrated Regional Transport System-SITAR). To meet demand, the company would acquire 8 FH-227s from England
The aircraft destroyed in the accident was the Fairchild FH-227B, prefix PT-LBV, from TABA, which was manufactured in 1967, with construction number 536. After flying for some English companies, it would be sold in June 1981 to TABA.

Accident

The TABA Fairchild Hiller FH-227, registration PT-LBV, took off at 5:30 a.m. from Eirunepé airport. The aircraft was carrying 40 passengers and 4 crew members and was headed for Manaus, with scheduled stops in Tabatinga, Coari and Tefé.

After 30 minutes of flight, the crew received a weather report from the Tabatinga radio station, which informed them that due to dense fog, the local airport would be operating only with instruments. Therefore, the crew decided to approach and land using instruments.

A short time later, the Tabatinga radio beacon suddenly went off the air, forcing the TABA turboprop crew to land using visual references. However, the bad weather prevented the city of Tabatinga from being seen while the fuel ran out.

During an attempted landing, the crew used the river as a reference. Flying low to try to see the end of the runway, the plane crashed into the airport's radio beacon tower at 6:05 a.m., which was covered by fog, and crashed into the parking lot.

The impact with the ground caused a strong explosion that killed all 44 occupants of the aircraft and scattered debris over an area of 500 meters.

Due to a blackout in the city of Tabatinga, news of the accident would reach Manaus several hours later. Due to communication problems, TABA informed relatives that there were survivors. The information would only be denied hours later by the FAB, which would send an investigation team and forensic experts to Tabatinga to identify and release the bodies.

Among the dead passengers were: Expedito Barroso Alencar, mayor of Eirunepé, and the renowned manager of the former Celetra Amazon, Raimundo Paulo Araújo da Costa, responsible for supplying the electricity grid to the municipality of Eirunepé and also to other municipalities in the lower Juruá, they were traveling to participate in the PDS regional convention.