Qualla: Austral Líneas Aéreas Flight 205

Austral Líneas Aéreas Flight 205: Introduction

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. It was high summer in Argentina, the season when Buenos Aires empties toward the coast and the resort city of Mar del Plata fills with families chasing the sea breeze. On the night of 16 January 1959, fifty-two people boarded a propeller-driven Curtiss C-46 Commando for the short hop south, an hour or so over the dark Pampas to the Atlantic shore. The weather over Mar del Plata was poor, and the flight had already waited thirty-five minutes for it to clear. It would never clear. Of the fifty-two souls aboard, fifty-one would not see the morning.

Image: Alan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

Austral Líneas Aéreas Flight 205: A Routine Hop South

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. Flight 205 lifted off from Buenos Aires at 19:50, carrying five crew and forty-seven passengers across roughly 250 miles of darkened countryside. For most of the journey there was nothing remarkable about it. The Commando was a sturdy wartime workhorse, twin-engined and reliable,...

Image: Alan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

Austral Líneas Aéreas Flight 205: The Approach That Failed

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. Two things compounded the danger. The airport's non-directional beacon, the radio aid that would have guided the crew down through cloud, was not functioning. And the visibility was poor, the runway lights smeared and indistinct in the murk. The captain, unfamiliar with the local...

Image: Alan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

Austral Líneas Aéreas Flight 205: Four Hours in the Water

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. All five crew and forty-six of the forty-seven passengers were lost. That so many died makes the survival of the one almost unbearable to imagine. Roberto Servente, a businessman, came out of the wreckage into the open sea with multiple fractures and grave injuries, and somehow d...

Image: Alan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

Austral Líneas Aéreas Flight 205: The Survivor's Long Road

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. Servente did not let the crash define him by its grief alone. In the years that followed he went to work for the very airline whose plane had nearly killed him, and he rose to become a director of Austral. He carried the night of 16 January 1959 for the rest of his days and lived...

Image: Alan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0