Mexicana Flight 704

Mexicana Flight 704

A Boeing 727-100 similar to the crashed aircraft
Accident
Date	June 4, 1969 (1969-06-04)
Summary	Controlled Flight into Terrain
Site	Apodaca, Nuevo León
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Boeing 727-64
Operator	Mexicana de Aviacion
Registration	XA-SEL
Flight origin	Lic. Benito Juarez International Airport
Destination	Del Norte International Airport
Passengers	72
Crew	7
Fatalities	79
Injuries	0
Survivors	0

On June 4, 1969, Mexicana Flight 704, a Boeing 727-64 airliner registered XA-SEL, crashed near Salinas Victoria, some 20 miles north of the city of Monterrey. All 79 people on board were killed.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was a two-year old Boeing 727-64 registered XA-SEL (factory - 19256, serial - 355) The aircraft's maiden flight was on January 6, 1967. On January 17 the same year, the aircraft was delivered to Mexicana de Aviación (later rennamed as - Mexicana), where it received the name Azteca de Oro. It was equipped with 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 15,00 flying hours on commercial aircraft. The names and flight experience of the first officer and flight engineer are both unknown.

Crash

The plane made a short domestic passenger flight MX-704 from Mexico City, from where it departed at 7 am, to Monterrey, and in total there were 72 passengers and 7 crew members on board. The flight to Monterrey passed without deviations, and soon the crew began to descend at a vertical speed of 1500–1600 ft / min (460–490 m / min) and an air speed of 250 knots. A connection was also established with the take-off and landing controller with a report on the descent to the airport, after which information about the weather and other aircraft around the airport was requested. In response, the dispatcher reported that there were no other aircraft in the airport zone, and over the airport there was cloudiness with a lower boundary of 500 feet (150 m), haze and it was raining slightly. The receipt of the information was confirmed, and after the pilots they asked if the radio beacon of Cienega de Flores was working, but the answer was negative because there was no power supply on it. Then from flight 704 they reported that for some reason they received a signal similar to the signal from this beacon. Then the crew reported that he saw the airport and began to carry out the decline. It was the last radio message from the board of the XA-SEL.

The aircraft collided with Cerro del Fraile upon impact and broke up, killing all 79 people on board.

The crash of Flight 704 was the deadliest aviation accident on Mexican soil until Mexicana Flight 940, another Boeing 727, crashed on March 31, 1986, killing all 167. It remains Mexico's second-deadliest aircraft accident to date, behind Flight 940.

Notable passengers

Notable passengers on the flight included Mexican tennis star Rafael Osuna and politician Carlos A. Madrazo.

Investigation

As it was determined, the plane followed the Monterrey radio beacon, after which, in accordance with the approach scheme, made a right turn. Further, according to the scheme, it was necessary to perform a left turn, however, instead, the liner continued to decline for a long time at the rate of 260 °, while deviating to the right from the approach scheme. It was only at the end of the decline that a slow left turn was started, during which the Boeing crashed into the mountains at a course of 232°. The commander of the aircraft was considered an experienced pilot, who knew the area well and had to understand that, going west, he was heading straight for the mountains. But the investigators could not determine the reason for such a deviation, since the last few minutes of recording were absent from the voice recorder. It was also not possible to determine the signal from which radio beacon the crew was catching, because the airport radio beacon at that moment stopped working due to loss of power supply.

Since the well-known Mexican politician Carlos Madrazo was on board, there are also hypotheses about political assassination, which, however, cannot be refuted or proved due to insufficient evidence.

References

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External links

• Mexicana Flight 704 at Airdisaster.com

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