learjet CX-VMC crash Mexico City

[geertvds]

Is there a capture of the learjet crash yesterday evening 19:00LT in approach to MMMX ?

[Himerzi]

learjet CX-VMC crash Mexico City

Note, the aircraft's registration was: XC-VMC.

Audio is attached.

Also, I recommend downloading this file. It is radar footage of the event, with the audio overlay. Interesting to watch.

I'm certainly no authority on the incident, but as all the investigation reports I could find are in Spanish, I'll say that everything points to a loss of wake turbulence separation, with a Mexicana 767 (As can be observed on the radar footage). I'd say blame falls on both controller and pilot: Pilot for reading-back controller's speed reduction instruction (180 kias, a speed compatible with that of the preceding heavy jet) and failing to comply with it (not to mention violating the 250 KT below 10,000 ft rule by a couple knots), yet at the end of the day controller did not keep his scan up and failed to catch the convergence in time; Either that, or he fully realized they had 3.9 instead of 5 miles, and was negligent. These comments are just based on what has come up so far, just preliminary.

A very tragic incident indeed. The plane plummeted into the heart of Mexico City rush hour traffic, killing our Secretary of the Interior (A very high ranking Official, just a tier under the President himself), and every other citizen involved.

News on the crash:

NTSB and Mexican aviation accident investigators are on scene in Mexico City, where a Learjet 45 (XC-VMC) crashed into a mixed residential/commercial neighborhood while on approach to Mexico City Airport on Tuesday evening. According to the NTSB, all nine aboard the Learjet–Mexican Interior Secretary Juan Camillo Mourino, his aides, former head of Mexico’s organized crime unit José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos and three crewmembers–were killed in the accident. Five people on the ground were also killed when the jet crashed into a number of cars, setting them on fire, and 40 others were reportedly injured, with 16 of them still hospitalized. Mexican investigators said the crash appeared to have been an accident, but sabotage can’t be ruled out because Mourino and Vasconcelos have both played roles in fighting the drug cartels. To quell speculation about sabotage, Mexican authorities yesterday made the unprecedented step of releasing radar images of the Learjet’s final track along with recordings of the pilot’s last communications with controllers. The investigation is still ongoing

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7711518.stm
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/11/05/mexico.minster.crash/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/11/04/mexico.minister/index.html

***EDIT***: I'm sorry, people in Mexico dont actually sound like squirrels over the radio. The problem seems to be with my MP3 encoder.... Does someone have a link where I can get LAME ? Apparently mine is broken.

I've uploaded a .wav instead, where everything sounds normal.

[Himerzi]

An inconsistency I noticed, not just in the article's linked above, but also in Mexican newspaper's, is that they cite the plane as being a Learjet 45, the datatag on the controller's radar shows "LJ25". Also, wouldn't the conflict alert have been going off as soon as the LJ got too close, or are CA's static, in the sense that they are set to a single separation minimum and do not take into account different standards that come into play with diff. weight classes ? Also, don't radar systems have a MSAW system as well ?

Also funny, if you look frame by frame on the Radar recording, that VMC goes from reporting the IAP published altitude of 9,700, to in the next frame not having an altitude in the datablock at all, which would put to rest my MSAW question. However, why didn't we see a gradual decrease in altitude as the plane came down ? Must have been scary as hell to be the piloting the helicopter we see cross VMC's trajectory right as he goes down (needless to say, scary as hell being IN XC-VMC).

[ect76]

Hi - Re-encoded to MP3 and seems to be OK. Also attached my copy of Lame_enc.dll which seems to work properly!

[Himerzi]

Thank you.

[Аэрофлот Jr.]

does anyone hav transcript of this audio file ?