Note: I do my best to keep this updated as much as possible.
If there's an accident that you're aware of that isn't listed, please don't hesitate to let me know and I will add it to the list.
Unfortunately, Uyuni can be a dangerous place.
Accidents, even deadly ones, are not terribly rare in organized tours on the salt flats. Once you get into that jeep, you're 100% in the hands of your driver.
Lonely Planet even claimed in 2008 that as many as 18 people had died in only a few months.
In a greater effort to add more transparency to the tourism industry in the salt flats, we've decided to publish a list of all serious accidents that we could identify happening on salt flat tours. At this time, we're only publishing accidents that we can verify via publication in newspapers--reports in Tripadvisor are not enough to warrant inclusion.
Keep in mind, it seems that local newspapers are more likely to identify the tour agencies that were involved in the accidents--whereas international news sources are less likely to report the names of the agencies.
For this reason, most of the links below are originally written in Spanish, and translated by myself into the "details" column.
Date | URL | Agencies Involved | Details |
---|---|---|---|
May 3rd, 2008 | Kantuta, Naturs | Head-on crash | |
July 15th, 2008 | Link | Colque Tours | Vehicle flipped |
April 7th, 2011 | Ripley Tours | Vehicle flipped | |
March 17th, 2014 | Yoerva Tours, Transporte Asunción | Head-on crash | |
July 31st, 2016 | San Juan | Vehicle flipped | |
July 10th, 2017 | Sumaj Jallpa | Vehicles flipped, tourists on top of car | |
Oct 10th, 2018 | Not specified | Vehicle flipped | |
Aug 2nd, 2017 | Not specified | Vehicle flipped | |
July 27, 2012 | Andrea Tours | Vehicle flipped | |
March 24th, 2017 | Ripley Tours | Vehicle flipped | |
July 31st, 2017 | Not specified | Vehicle flipped | |
April 17th, 2017 | Tito Tours | Vehicle flipped | |
July 19th, 2017 | Tres Gigantes | Tour guide involved in shootings | |
June 10th, 2019 | Callpa Tours | Vehicle flipped | |
July 21st, 2019 | Expediciones Huracán | Vehicle flipped | |
Sept 27, 2019 | Sol de Mañana | Two Vehicles Collided on salt flats |
If you know of an accident that we've missed, and can send us over a newspaper story about it, we'll be happy to add it to the list.