Mexicana Flight 940

Mexicana Flight 940, operated by Mexicana Airlines (Compañía Mexicana de Aviación), was a scheduled international flight from Mexico City–Puerto Vallarta–Mazatlán–Los Angeles on March 31, 1986, utilizing a Boeing 727-200 registered as XA-MEM,[1] when the plane crashed into El Carbón, a mountain in the rugged Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range northwest of Mexico City, killing everyone on board.[2] With 167 deaths, the crash of Flight 940 is the deadliest aviation disaster ever to occur on Mexican soil, and the deadliest involving a Boeing 727.[3]

Mexicana Flight 940
A Mexicana Boeing 727, similar to the one involved
Accident
DateMarch 31, 1986
SummaryIn-flight fire due to maintenance error, leading to loss of hydraulic and electrical systems.
SiteMichoacán, Mexico
19°50′05.2″N 100°18′27.3″W
Aircraft
Aircraft typeBoeing 727-264
Aircraft nameVeracruz
OperatorMexicana de Aviacion
RegistrationXA-MEM
Flight originBenito Juárez International Airport
1st stopoverLic. Gustavo Díaz Ordaz International Airport
Last stopoverGeneral Rafael Buelna International Airport
DestinationLos Angeles International Airport
Occupants167
Passengers159
Crew8
Fatalities167
Survivors0

Background

The aircraft involved was delivered to Mexicana in 1981[4] and was named "Veracruz". The plane was piloted by Captain Carlos Guadarrama Sistos, an experienced Mexican captain with over 15,000 hours of flying experience. The first officer was Philip L. Piaget Rhorer, and the flight engineer was Ángel Carlos Peñasco Espinoza. The crew of eight included five flight attendants. The wife of the captain, who was a retired flight attendant, and the captain's son and daughter were also among the 159 passengers on board.[5] At 08:50 local time, the plane took off from Benito Juárez International Airport en route to Los Angeles International Airport with scheduled stopovers in Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlán.[6] The plane carried 147 passengers (139 passengers and 8 crew members) from Mexico, 8 from France, 6 from the United States, 4 from Sweden, and 2 from Canada.[7]

NationalityPassengersCrewTotal
Mexico1398147
France808
United States606
Sweden404
Canada202
Total1598167

Crash

At 09:05, fifteen minutes after takeoff, an explosion rocked the fuselage. Captain Guadarrama and the crew in the cockpit, realizing that the plane was shaking too much, declared an emergency and asked to return to Benito Juárez International Airport for an emergency landing.[8] The airport was prepared for the landing. However, the aircraft crashed into El Carbón mountain near the town of Maravatío, Michoacán, broke in two and burst into flames.[8] All 167 passengers and crew were killed upon impact.[2] Among the dead were two film scouts for the horror film Predator. Eyewitnesses reported details of the crash to authorities. The local police and the Mexican army were dispatched to the crash site.[9]

Investigation
The crash occurred in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range

Initially, two Middle Eastern terrorist groups claimed responsibility for this crash, along with the bombing of TWA Flight 840, which occurred just two days later. An anonymous letter signed by those groups claimed that a suicide mission had sabotaged the plane in retaliation against the United States.[10][11] However, sabotage was later dismissed as a cause of the crash. The investigations were carried out by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Mexican aeronautical authorities, who found that the cause of the accident was that the center landing gear tire was filled with compressed air, instead of nitrogen.[8] In addition, the tire had some marks of overheating. The investigators later found that the overheating was caused by a malfunctioning brake on the landing gear.[12]

Aftermath

Mexicana maintenance personnel were blamed for negligence in maintaining the 727 and for filling the tire with compressed air, instead of nitrogen. About a year after the crash, the U.S. FAA released an Airworthiness Directive [13] requiring the use of dry nitrogen (or other gases shown to be inert) when filling the tires on braked wheels of most commercial airliners. The crash remains the deadliest airline disaster in Mexican history[14] and is the world's deadliest air disaster involving the Boeing 727. The cause of the in-flight fire is believed to be the rupture of fuel lines by the exploding tire.[1]

See also
  • Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 - A similar crash where under-inflated tyres overheated and started a fire onboard which destroyed vital hydraulic and control cables leading to a loss of control
  • Air France Flight 4590 - A 2000 Concorde crash caused by an inflight fire triggered by tire burst on takeoff
  • Swissair Flight 306 - A 1963 crash caused by an inflight fire triggered by a landing gear failure on takeoff
  • ValuJet Flight 592 - A 1996 crash caused by an inflight fire in the cargo hold

References
  1. Ranter, Harro. "ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 727-264 XA-MEM Las Mesas". aviation-safety.net. Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
  2. Seiler, Michael (April 1, 1986). "All 166 on Jet Die in Mexican Crash". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
  3. Ranter, Harro. "Boeing 727". aviation-safety.net. Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved 2018-11-20.
  4. "XA-MEM - Boeing 727-264(Adv) - 22414 - JetPhotos". JetPhotos. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
  5. "Pilot's Family Killed, Wife Had Survived Earlier Crash With Mexico-Plane". www.apnewsarchive.com. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
  6. "La mayor tragedia aérea en el país; 166 personas murieron hace 30 años" [The greatest air tragedy in the country; 166 people died 30 years ago] (in Spanish). 31 March 2016. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
  7. "Un Boeing 727 se estrella en México con 166 personas a bordo" [A Boeing 727 crashes in Mexico with 166 people on board] (in Spanish). Hemeroteca El País - Espanha. 1 April 1986. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  8. "The Crash of Mexicana de Aviacion Flight 940". ecperez.blogspot.co.nz. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
  9. "Bodies recovered from mountain crash site". Retrieved 8 January 2018.
  10. Levi, Isaac A. (April 4, 1986). Mexican jet pilots claim plane crash caused by explosion. Kentucky New Era (AP).
  11. "The Montreal Gazette - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
  12. The Montreal Gazette (AP), April 5, 1986.
  13. "AD 87-08-09". rgl.faa.gov. Retrieved 1 August 2020.
  14. Fields, Dana (May 23, 1986). Explosion, fire preceded plane crash that killed 167. Nashua Telegraph (AP).
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