The October 31, 1979 flight left Los Angeles International Airport at 1:40 AM PST, and was scheduled to land well before sunrise in Mexico City.
But the phrase "sidestep" or "sidestep approach" – common aviation parlance in the United States – was never used by Mexico air traffic controllers to Flight 2605 to describe the approach. Cockpit voice recording audio of the last seconds of the flight indicated that the first officer and captain agreed that they were cleared for 23R (not the runway they were still on approach to). Approximately 3.3 seconds after the touch down and in a 10-11 degree nose up attitude, the right main gear collided with a dump truck loaded with 10 tons of earth. On October 19, 1979, a notice to airmen was issued stating that Runway 23L would be closed until further notice for resurfacing work. At the time of the accident, runway 23L had full The October 31, 1979 flight left Los Angeles International Airport at 1:40 AM PST (As Flight 2605 approached Mexico City International Airport, air traffic controllers cleared it for an Weather conditions were deteriorating during Flight 2605's instrument approach. FS MaNiA Recommended for you. This meant that the flight was to follow the instrument landing system's glide path toward Runway 23L, and, as soon as they sighted Runway 23R through the cockpit window, they would reorient their aircraft to land on it instead.
On October 31, 1979, at 5:42 a.m. CST, the aircraft used for the flight, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, crashed at Mexico City International Airport in fog, after landing on a runway closed for maintenance.
Ground fatalities were reported from one (the driver of the truck parked on Runway 23L)Mexico City International Airport was forced to close to flights temporarily due to the Western Airlines crash. Western Airlines Flight 2605 was an international scheduled passenger flight from Los Angeles, California, to Mexico City, Mexico. Oktober 1979 verunglückte eine McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 auf Western-Airlines-Flug 2605 bei der Landung auf dem Flughafen Mexiko-Stadt. The captain further stated that they were in fact (still) on the approach to 23L, saying "No, this is the approach to the goddamned left". 43:07. Text remarks for the sidestep approach to 23R described only ceiling and visibility minimums.Weather conditions were deteriorating during Flight 2605's instrument approach. Then at a speed of 130 knots the aircraft's main landing gear touched down, left gear on the grass left of runway 23L and right gear on the runway shoulder, producing a force greater than 2 g's. The official report describes it thusly: In continuing toward 23L below that height, by definition the crew was deviating from their cleared approach. The impact of the landing gear shattered the truck, fatally injuring its driver, and creating a debris field 400m by 100m in area.The damaged aircraft, still airborne with takeoff thrust engaged, began to bank to the right. Mexico City International Airport has two runways: Runway 23 Left (23L), and Runway 23 Right (23R). It is like this crash never happened. "As shown by the flight recorder trace, the aircraft stayed on the correct flight path to Runway 23 Right for most of the time between the outer marker "Metro Eco" and Mexico City International Airport, and only deviated to the runway closed to traffic (23 Left) when at a height of (600 feet) above the ground during its final approach. It then impacted an Eastern Airlines service building north of both runways, 26 seconds after it initially touched down. While searching for the Western Airlines 2605, Mexico City, 1979 accident I discovered that there is nothing at all on the web. The end of the right wing eventually struck the corner of an aircraft repair hangar, causing damage to the hangar and also fracturing the DC-10's right wing. Lockheed SR 71 Blackbird - …