On 1 March 2021, an Aviación Militar Bolivariana de Venezuela (AMBV, Venezuela Air Force) EMB312A Tucano, serial 5050 (construction number 312247), force landed around 09:00 hrs LT in a field between the cities of Mariara and San Joaquín in the north of the country, about eighty kilometres west of the capital Caracas. Both pilots were taken to a hospital for further treatment.
The training aircraft, operated by Grupo de Entrenamiento Aéreo 14 Escorpiones from Base Aérea Mariscal Sucre (Boca del Rio), was on a training flight and according to the available information was on its way back to the airbase. The unfortunate Tucano was painted in a special black/orange colour scheme and marked with 100,000 horas.
Grupo de Entrenamiento Aéreo 14 has two training squadrons operating the EMB312A Tucano; Escuadrón 142 Básico and Escuadrón 143 Tactico. Next to that, the Grupo also provides initial training with Escuadrón 141 Primario operating the Cessna 182 and the SIAI Marchetti F260EU.
According to our Scramble database, Venezuela received 31 Tucanos in the late 1980s of which eighteen aircraft are still reported as active. Of these eighteen aircraft, around ten have not been noted for more than ten years, so maybe less aircraft are still operational.
If you have updates on the current status of the EMB312A Tucano fleet, please let us know at
Photo: Ivan P. Nesbit/A2A Aviation Photog, kindly provided by JetPhotos.com and IASB / Emergencias Vzla