An Embraer-190 aircraft of the Aeroméxico company, carrying 97 passengers and four crew members, hit the ground violently after an attempt to take off from the airport of the city of Victoria de Durango, in north-central Mexico, with a final budget of 85 injured and no casualties.
Some passengers, interviewed by local media, reported that the plane had "a strange movement" as it was about to leave the runway. According to the first reconstructions, the accident occurred five minutes after take-off, around 16 (local time).
The testimonies collected are dramatic. A passenger says: "Suddenly it got dark, I heard the cabin tilt and saw the luggage fall, then there was a bang, as if we were back on track, and we" slipped "on the ground to stop, there we are saved by throwing ourselves into a hole that had opened in the nacelle ".
There are many factors that made this miracle possible. The height from which the aircraft crashed, just 300 meters and the readiness of the passengers themselves - including 11 children - who rescued each other and saved themselves through the gashes of the metal sheets and on the slides, before aboard flames blazed.
Also decisive was the timely activation of the slides that accelerated the evacuation in record time, and the fact that the crash took place in an open area, away from houses or large buildings.
The governor of the State of Durango, José Rosas Aispuro, declared that the weather conditions were unfavorable, it was hailing, there was a wind storm and for this reason the pilot tried to interrupt the take-off, but was unable to do so.
Aeromexico is a colossus of air traffic, the founder of Skyteam together with Air France. The last plane crash related to the company dates back to July 1981, when a scheduled flight crashed at the landing in Chihuahua, in the north of the country. In that case, however, there were 32 dead.