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DC10 Image: Richard Silagi
This is the story of Western Airlines Flight 2605. On the 31st of october 1979 a Mcdonnel douglas DC 10 was on its way from Los Angeles international airport to mexico city international airport in mexico city the plane had 89 people on board, including 13 crew members. The plane departed Los angeles at 1:40 am local time and the flight there posed no issues for the crew whatsoever, a normal early morning flight. As they closed in on mexico city, mexico control cleared them into their airspace. At this point the mexico control handed the plane off to the mexcio city international tower. The controller briefed the crew about the airport and the weather, It was quite foggy and the crew would have to bring the plane in for a landing with very little visibility. And the weather was not getting better. The weather report at 5 am put the visibility at 2-3 Nm but by 6 am the visibility was effectively zero. The controller informed the crew that theyd be landing on runway 23R, that was the active runway at the time.
The plane lined up for their approach onto runway 23 R as the plane was on final the controller comes on and informs the crew that they were a bit to the left of the centerline. The pilots acknowledge. They continued on. With fog enveloping the airport the controller checks in with the crew to see if they could see the runway, but the crew tells him no.. they could not see the runway lights through the thick fog. As they got closer and closer to the runway the crew realized something that they should have realized a long time ago, they were heading right for runway 23L and not 23R.The wheels touched down on the runway and they pushed the throttles up as far as they went in an attempt to go around. They pitched the nose up at about 10-11 degrees, their efforts seemed to be working. The huge plane slowly started to climb out, but thats when their luck ran out. Runway 23L had been closed for renovation and so had a lot of machinery on the runway. The right main landing gear slammed into a truck full of dirt, destroying the truck and fatally injuring the driver.
The truck had 10 tonnes of dirt in it and the impact ripped the right landing gear off. Large pieces of the right landing gear was sent flying and it impacted the right horizontal stabilizer. Making the plane a lot harder to control. The plane had lost a lot of its control surfaces. The flaps on the right wing was damaged and so was the right elevator. But the plane was airborne. The plane started to bank to the right. The aircraft was banking right so badly that the right flaps slammed into an excavator that was parked next to the runway. The cab of the excavator was all but destroyed. The plane continued on but it was starting to bank right more and more. The right wingtip dipped so low that it struck taxiway alpha, scarring the pavement. The right wing at this point started to break apart. Investigators found a bit of the right wing embedded in taxiway alpha.
Up until this point the plane had more or less been airborne. They had flown the plane for about 2500 meters or 8200 feet, but then their luck ran out, the right wing hit a hangar which sent the plane crashing into the building itself.
Of the 89 people on board 73 did not make it.
Flight 2605 had landed on runway 23L instead of 23R with disastrous results. Listening to the ATC recordings and the CVR they hear the controller clear the plane to runway 23R on two
