2008 Mexico City Plane Crash - Results of Investigation

Results of Investigation

The black boxes were sent to the United States for analysis. Information gathered from 38 minutes of cabin conversations, along with video footage from a security camera on top of the Omega Office Building, provided evidence for an official statement by the Mexican Government that the crash was the result of pilot error. The Learjet was ruled to have been following too close to a Boeing 767-300 jet operated by Mexicana Airlines, and therefore suffered violent wake turbulence caused by the larger jet. The minimum allowable distance for a lighter plane to follow behind a heavier plane is 5 nautical miles (9.3 km); the Learjet was only 4.1 nautical miles (7.6 km) behind the Mexicana airplane.

Investigations into the accident have discovered several issues with the Mexican government's use of private contractors as pilots of government aircraft, especially important in cases such as this, when the passengers are high-level officials. Aviación Ejecutiva SA de CV is a company out of Toluca Mexico that currently holds the contract with the Mexican Federal government to provide services of maintenance and pilots for the federal airline fleet.

Benito Juarez Airport restricts light general aviation, which typically flies from Toluca International Airport. Only some government areas handle small and medium planes from facilities in Mexico City's Benito Juarez International Airport.

Several key elements of the accident have emerged during the investigation:

• The flight crew appear to have had little experience in operation of the Learjet 45, and an investigation concerning how they received their certification is currently underway.
• Conversation among the flight crew indicates that they had little familiarity with the operation of the plane; they failed on several occasions to enter the proper information into the cockpit instruments, did not follow a proper flight plan, and had navigational difficulties, missing their original arrival to San Luis Potosi by over 250 nautical miles (460 km). Further it was stated that their in-flight conversations were more of the nature of people driving a car, not of trained pilots following a proper flight plan.
• The flight crew waited over a minute to follow the order from air traffic control to reduce their velocity. The Learjet had been traveling at 262 knots (485 km/h), while the Mexicana 767-300 was flying at 185 knots (343 km/h), which caused the Learjet to get too close to the 767-300. The accident happened during peak hours at the airport with heavy air traffic; this has brought criticism of the handling and scheduling of risky flight plans for top government officials.
• The accident happened just at the point where aircraft entering Mexico City traveling on a 170° course (south-southeast) make a sharp left turn to align with the runways of Benito Juarez International Airport, at 53° (northeast). When the Learjet reached the turning point, too close behind the Mexicana 767-300, it encountered violent wake turbulence, causing the plane -> to invert into a nose-down attitude. At this point, the plane would have been flying at 9,000 feet (2,700 m) MSL, which is about 1,700 feet (520 m) over the ground.
• The flight crew was unable to regain control due to airspeed, inverted nose-down position, and insufficient altitude. The flight crew did manage to reduce the angle of descent from 45° to 40° before hitting the ground at over 300 miles per hour (480 km/h).