Misplaced Pages

Mexicana de Aviación Flight 704

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
1969 aviation accident

Mexicana de Aviación Flight 704
A Mexicana Boeing 727, similar to the one involved
Accident
Date4 June 1969 (1969-06-04)
SummaryControlled flight into terrain
SiteApodaca, Nuevo León
Aircraft
Aircraft typeBoeing 727-64
Aircraft nameAzteca de Oro
OperatorMexicana de Aviación
RegistrationXA-SEL
Flight originLic. Benito Juarez International Airport
DestinationDel Norte International Airport
Occupants79
Passengers72
Crew7
Fatalities79
Survivors0

On 4 June 1969, Mexicana de Aviación Flight 704, a Boeing 727-64 airliner registered XA-SEL, was destroyed near El Carmen, some 20 miles north of the city of Monterrey, Nuevo León. All 79 people on board were killed.

Accident

Flight MX704 departed Mexico City, bound for Monterrey, at 07:02 local time. The flight was uneventful until approach, when the crew began descending at a vertical speed of 1500–1600 ft / min (460–490 m / min) at an airspeed of 250 knots. During its approach to Del Norte International Airport, the crew contacted the landing controller and requested weather conditions and traffic information. The dispatcher reported that the weather over the airport was cloudy with a lower boundary of 500 feet (150 m) with haze, light raining, and no other aircraft in the airport zone. The crew asked if the radio beacon at Ciénega de Flores was operating, and received word that it was not functioning due to an electrical power outage. Flight 704 then reported that, for some reason, they received a signal similar to the signal from this beacon. The crew then reported the airport in sight, and began to carry out the final approach. This was the last transmission from the aircraft.

The aircraft ended up destroyed in the Cerro del Fraile mountain range, killing all 79 people on board. The crash was the deadliest aviation accident on Mexican soil until Mexicana Flight 940, another Boeing 727, crashed on 31 March 1986, killing all 167 people on board.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was a two-year-old Boeing 727-064 registered XA-SEL (factory - 19256, serial - 355) The aircraft's maiden flight was on 6 January 1967. On 17 January, the aircraft was delivered to Mexicana de Aviación (later re-branded as Mexicana), where it was named Azteca de Oro. The aircraft was powered by three Pratt & Whitney JT8D-7B turbofan engines.

Crew

The captain was Guillermo García Ramos, a World War II veteran. He was experienced in both military and commercial aviation. He had 15,000 flying hours on commercial aircraft. The first officer was Carlos de Iturbide Magallón. The flight engineer was Alfonso Navarro Mazzini.

Notable passengers

Notable passengers on the flight included politician Carlos A. Madrazo, tennis star Rafael Osuna and the architect Jorge González Reyna [es].

Investigation

The investigating board was unable to determine the reason for such a deviation, since the last few minutes of the recording were absent from the cockpit voice recorder. It was also not possible to determine which radio beacon the flight crew had reported receiving, as the airport radio beacon was not working at the time due to loss of electrical power. Since the prominent Carlos Madrazo was on board, there were also hypotheses regarding political assassination.

Conspiracy theories

Some Mexican media, such as Uno TV, have argued that the accident was a premeditated, political assassination act, since politician Carlos Madrazo was in the aircraft at the time of the accident. In an interview with Proceso magazine, writer Patricia Rosas Lopátegui also argued that the accident was a political assassination targeting Madrazo.

References

  1. ^ "ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 727-64 XA-SEL Monterrey-Gen Mariano Escobedo Airport (MTY)". Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved 5 July 2015.
  2. ^ "POLÉMICA EN EL VUELO 704 DE MEXICANA: ¿ERROR DEL PILOTO O CRIMEN DE ESTADO?" (in Spanish). LOS GRANDES ACCIDENTES AEREOS EN EL MUNDO. 5 September 2011. Retrieved 5 July 2015.
  3. ^ "Mexican jet smashes peak, 79 aboard die". Montreal Gazette. 5 June 1969. p. 1. Retrieved 5 July 2015.
  4. "The Montreal Gazette - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com. Retrieved 31 December 2018.
  5. "Registration Details For XA-SEL (Mexicana) 727-64". PlaneLogger. Retrieved 5 July 2015.
  6. ""La muerte de Carlos Alberto Madrazo fue un crimen político"". www.unotv.com. 25 February 2020. Retrieved 3 May 2021.
  7. "Elena Garro y Carlos Alberto Madrazo, figuras olvidadas de 1968: Rosas Lopátegui". www.proceso.com.mx. Retrieved 3 May 2021.

External links

Aviation accidents and incidents in Mexico
1940s-1950s
1960s-1970s
1980s-1990s
2000s-2010s
Aviation accidents and incidents in 1969 (1969)
Jan 5 Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701Jan 6 Allegheny Airlines Flight 737Jan 13 Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 933Jan 18 United Air Lines Flight 266Feb 18 El Al Flight 432Feb 18 Hawthorne Nevada Airlines Flight 708Feb 24 Far Eastern Air Transport Flight 104Mar 5 Prinair Flight 277Mar 16 Viasa Flight 742Mar 20 United Arab Airlines Aswan crashMar 25 Delta Air Lines Flight 821Apr 2 LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165Apr 15 EC-121 shootdown incidentApr 28 LAN-Chile Flight 160May 23 Theft of C-130Jun 4 Mexicana de Aviación Flight 704Jun 23 Yukhnov mid-air collisionJun 28 Aeroflot Flight F-28Jul 26 TWA Flight 5787Aug 3 Aeroflot Flight N-826Aug 26 Aeroflot Flight 1770Aug 29 TWA Flight 840Aug 31 Newton Cessna 172 crashSep 9 Allegheny Airlines Flight 853Sep 12 Philippine Air Lines Flight 158Sep 21 Mexicana de Aviación Flight 801Sep 26 La Paz LAB DC-6 crashNov 19 Mohawk Airlines Flight 411Nov 20 Nigeria Airways Flight 925Dec 3 Air France Flight 212Dec 8 Olympic Airways Flight 954Dec 11 Korean Air Lines YS-11 hijacking
1968   ◄    ►   1970

Categories:
Mexicana de Aviación Flight 704 Add topic