Aero León

Aero León S.A de C.V was a cargo airline based in Mexico City.[1]

History

Aero León was founded in May 1978 by the captain Eucario León, a former fighter pilot of the US Navy during WW2 and a former in-flight attendant and pilot of Continental Airlines, starting with a Douglas DC-9-15F on flights between Mexico City, Monterrey and San Luis Potosí.

In March 1980, Aero León received two Douglas DC-8-24 planes and started flights to Central and South America.[2]

In April 1983, Aero León had an incident while it was carrying cattle to Brazil. The aircraft (a DC-8) suffered a depressurization problem and had an emergency landing. After landing, the cattle were found dead, due to the temperature descending to subfreezing levels by the depressurization; after an investigation, DGAC found several maintenance failures in the fleet of Aero León. The airline was suspended on May 21. However, the airline renewed its papers, gave a massive maintenance to the fleet and returned to fly on June 10, when their AOC was returned.

On July 28, the airline suffered another incident after one airplane had an emergency landing at Mexico City. An investigation found more than 36 human corpses in the airplane. The airline was called to meeting with the civil authorities, and although the airline said that a group of people were responsible for a sabotage the previous night and had introduced the corpses into the aircraft, the crew was accused of traffic of corpses. After the session, the directors of the airline were condemned to 26 years of prison and the pilots, people in charge of operations and in-flight personnel were sentenced to 17 years of prison. Finally, the AOC of Aero León was removed on September 16 and the airline was closed 2 days later. A particular case was the president of the airline (Eucario León), who although was condemned to permanent imprisonment, was released in 1998 due to his advanced age. Later, León died in October 2002 in a Mexico City hospital, after spending 13 months there due to a coronary problem.

Destinations

Until March 1983, destinations of Aero León included:

Fleet
  • 1 Douglas DC-8-21F
  • 1 Douglas DC-8-24F
  • 2 Douglas DC-9-15F
  • 1 Fairchild Metroliner (used only as crew trainer)

References
  1. Jackson 1987, p.150-15
  2. Flight Global 1993, p.167
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