It was flying over the Nazca Lines in Peru — the small passenger plane carrying seven Italians that crashed to the ground after taking off from Prisco airport.

A UNESCO World Heritage site, the geoglyphs were etched into the ground between 500 BCE and 500 CE and remain one of archaeology’s greatest mysteries, according to the site. They depict living animals, stylized plants and imaginary beings, as well as geometric figures that extend for several kilometers. They are thought to have had ritual and astronomical purposes.

The archaeological area attracts tens of thousands of tourists each year: it is the most extraordinary complex of geoglyphs in the world, unmatched in terms of scale, impact, number, size, variety and millennia-long tradition compared with any similar work elsewhere. The concentration and juxtaposition of the lines, together with their cultural continuity, indicate that this was a significant activity sustained over a long period, lasting roughly a thousand years.

The plane crash that killed the two Italian families is not the first accident involving the small aircraft that fly over the Nazca Lines. In 2022 another crash killed seven people, including two Chileans and three Dutch nationals, while in October 2010 four British tourists and two crew members died. Other incidents have occurred previously, the most serious in 2010, when a plane used for a scenic flight over the Nazca Lines crashed into the desert shortly after takeoff, causing seven deaths.

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