N903WA, the aircraft involved, two years before the accident occurred
Accident
Date
October 31, 1979 (1979-10-31)
Summary
Crashed into construction vehicle while landing on a closed runway
Site
Mexico City Int'l Airport, Mexico City, Mexico 19°26′11″N99°04′20″W / 19.43639°N 99.07222°W / 19.43639; -99.07222
Total fatalities
73
Aircraft
Aircraft type
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10
Operator
Western Airlines
Registration
N903WA
Flight origin
Los Angeles Int'l Airport Los Angeles, California, United States
Destination
Mexico City Int'l Airport Mexico City, Mexico
Occupants
89 [1]: 108
Passengers
75 [1]: 108
Crew
13
Fatalities
72
Injuries
15
Survivors
16 [1]: 108
Ground casualties
Ground fatalities
1
Western Airlines Flight 2605, nicknamed the "Night Owl",[2] was an international scheduled passenger flight from Los Angeles, California, to Mexico City, Mexico. On October 31, 1979, at 5:42 a.m. CST (UTC−06:00), the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 used on the flight crashed at Mexico City International Airport in fog after landing on a runway that was closed for maintenance. Of the 89 people on board, 72 were killed, in addition to a maintenance worker who died when the plane struck his vehicle.[1]
Flight 2605 remains the deadliest air accident to have occurred in Mexico City. The event is the third-deadliest aviation accident on Mexican soil after the crashes of two Boeing 727s: the 1969 crash of Mexicana de Aviación Flight 704 and that of Mexicana de Aviación Flight 940 in 1986.[3] The crash was one of three fatal DC-10 accidents in 1979 and occurred just over five months after the crash of American Airlines Flight 191 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and less than a month before the crash of Air New Zealand Flight 901 on Mount Erebus in Antarctica.
^ abcdCite error: The named reference :4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^"Nation: The Crash of the Night Owl". Time. 1979-11-12. Retrieved 2016-04-22.
^"ASN Aircraft Accident McDonnell Douglas DC-10 N903WA Mexico City-Juarez International Airport (MEX)". Aviation Safety Network.
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