The 260916 Monument is a memorial site in an uninhabited location approximately 380 kilometers northwest of Nuevo Tepizcoeloyo, TDCorp Territory.
A DO 17 aircraft similar to Aircraft 260916, involved in the accident
Accident[]
The memorial was built by TDCorp to honor the crew of TDC 8729, a MEDEVAC flight locating victims of the Regina Incident in what was then northern WWWW. The DO 17 multirole transport carried a 28-person crew. The 2 pilots and 2 loadmasters of Aircraft Inventory Number 260916 were transporting 16 TDC Medical Division first responders and 6 medical professionals from different hospitals in TDCorp territory, plus a field hospital to stabilize the victims and begin treatment against papaveromimosis.
During approach to a dry lakebed to pick up victims located by a ground team, unexpected wind shear caused by the extreme temperatures of the region caused a momentary salt and sand whirlwind that, according to the investigating team, "rendered all visual cues invalid and caused severe and rapid changes in airspeed, which caused the left wing to stall and generate rolling forces that could not be countered by the pilots in time to recover a level attitude". The aircraft's left wing contacted the ground, and the DO 17 cartwheeled, broke apart and caught fire. There were no survivors of the accident. A subsequent MEDEVAC flight, alerted by the ground team, did achieve a safe landing and the extraction of the ground team, the victims and what remains could be rescued from the burning wreck.
After the Regina Testament was ratified by the Queen of WWWW and the TDCorp board of directors, an investigation into the accident was launched; the testimony of the ground team and the video recordings of the accident helped the investigators reach the conclusion that the accident was caused both by the extreme conditions under which the aircraft was operated and the insufficiently developed training the pilots had received for dealing with conditions in the high desert. After the investigators delivered their conclusions, the responsible managers at TDCorp were fined and demoted, and compensation was paid to the crew's next of kin.
Monument[]
The TDCorp Board of Directors tasked the Chairman, Juan A. López, with ascertaining the accident location and building a suitable memorial. Per the Chairman's instructions, the memorial was designed by a special team of architects and built by the TDCorp Infrastructure Department.
The monument is not accessible to the general public, per instruction of the TDCorp Board of Directors, and the location is guarded day and night by TDCorp SECDIV employees; signs on nearby roads, and special notations on maps and air navigation charts indicate the immediate vicinity as a no-access, no-overfly area.
The shape of the monument is roughly known from satellite photos; a black circle of non-reflective material, presumed to be basalt stone, is engraved with the silhouette of a DO 17 aircraft, and surrounded by black stones marking a windrose; at the southern end of the windrose, a piece of the DO 17's empennage has been sunk into the ground as a relic, and a black steel plaque has been placed in front of it.
The text of the plaque is the only part of the monument that has ever been published by TDCorp, and it reads as follows:
"Stranger, go and in Chilangotitlán tell, that here, by our oath and theirs, we fell"