A light aircraft has crashed near the Nazca Lines in southern Peru, killing 13 people, most of them tourists on a sightseeing flight.

Why people fly over Nazca

The Nazca Lines are enormous geoglyphs cut into the desert floor of southern Peru more than 1,500 years ago — figures of animals, plants and geometric shapes, some hundreds of metres across.

They were made on a scale that cannot be taken in from ground level. That is why sightseeing flights exist: a small aircraft circling at low altitude is effectively the only way to see the designs as designs rather than as scratches in the ground.

Those flights are a significant part of the local economy, and they are flown in small propeller aircraft that bank steeply and repeatedly so passengers on both sides can see.

What is not yet known

No cause has been established. Aviation investigations take months, sometimes years, and early explanations circulating after a crash are frequently wrong.

Investigators will examine the aircraft’s maintenance record, the weather at the time, the pilot’s experience and hours, and any recorded flight data. Small aircraft do not always carry the recorders that airliners do, which can make the picture harder to assemble.

We will report the findings when the investigating authority publishes them, rather than the speculation in between.

The people aboard

Most of those killed were visitors who had travelled a long way to see something remarkable, and the crew who flew them. Several nationalities are likely to be involved, which means consular notifications and repatriations across several countries.

Thirteen deaths in a single aircraft is, in aviation terms, a small accident. For thirteen families it is not.

Source: Wikipedia Portal: Current Events, August 2026.