Major plane tragedy averted! Aeromexico plane nearly lands on Delta Air Lines Boeing 737 flight at Mexico City airport

Mint

23-07-2025

A major plane tragedy was averted at Mexico City airport, when an Aeromexico plane came dangerously close to a Delta Air Lines Boeing 737 jet during landing, on Wednesday, July 23.
Aeromexico Flight 1631 swooped in over Delta Air Lines plane 590— already accelerating on its takeoff roll—before touching down on the very same runway, causing the flights to be just 200 ft away from each other, according to FlightRadar24 – a flight tracking website. The incident occurred on runway 5R at Benito Juarez International Airport.
A video footage from the flight tracker shows the exact moment when the two flights narrowly averted what could have been a major tragedy.
Delta Air Lines said the Atlanta-bound Boeing 737flight with 150 people onboard was on its takeoff roll when the crew aborted after observing 'another aircraft landing in front of their aircraft on the same runway,' reported ABC News.
What pilot recordings revealed?
The Delta Air Lines flight in question had already picked up a speed of 60 miles per hour before it's take-off roll was aborted.
As per air traffic control recordings accessed by ABC News, the Delta pilot can be heard saying, "We are holding on the runway" followed by someone saying, "Wow" and "Increíble." (Spanish for "incredible.") It is unclear if that was said by a nearby pilot or a controller.
The Delta jet returned to its gate before finally departing to its destination later that morning.
What caused the close call?
A former US-based fighter pilot, Steve Ganyard said that the issued might have happened due to failure in communication.
"It seems pretty clear that there was a failure to communicate, either with the tower controllers clearing it to aircraft for takeoff at the same time they cleared one to land, or perhaps they weren't clear with a landing aircraft which runway — left or right — it should have been landing on," said Ganyard. "But somewhere it was a failure to communicate."
Investigations into the alarming incident are currently underway.
Air India; Bangladesh Air Force jet crash
The Delta Air Lines flight and AeroMexico plane incident comes days after the deadly Air India plane crash in Gujarat's Ahmedabad, that killed 241 people onboard — into which investigations are still underway.
On Monday, July 21, at least 20 people were killed and 171 others were injured after a Bangladesh Air Force training jet crashed into a school.