1938 Santa Ana air show disaster
The 1938 Santa Ana air show disaster occurred on 24 July 1938 at a military review on the Campo de Marte in the Santa Ana district of Bogota, Colombia. During the review, a Curtiss Hawk II biplane of the Colombian Air Force piloted by Lieutenant César Abadia performed a stunt before crashing into a grandstand and then into the crowd.
The pilot attempted to fly between the presidential stand and the stand for diplomats when he miscalculated the distance and the aircraft's wing-tip struck the diplomatic stand. The Hawk II destroyed part of the roof of the presidential stand and then careened through the crowd bursting into flames before it came to a stop upside down. Over fifty people, including civilians and soldiers were killed, and over a hundred injured. Among those in the presidential stand but uninjured were the outgoing Colombian President Alfonso López Pumarejo and his successor Eduardo Santos. Among the wounded was Misael Pastrana Borrero, a future president of Colombia.
