The DC-10, tail number N903WA, had been delivered in 1973. For this flight, the plane was relatively lightly loaded with only 75 passengers and crew, while its maximum capacity would have been 270. The crew consisted of Captain Charles Gilbert, 53, F/O Ernst Reichel, 44, and F/E Dan Walsh (39). One of the two runways at MCIA was closed on October 10 for resurfacing work and pilots were cautioned to not land on it. Flight 2605 took off from Los Angeles International Airport at 1:40 AM PST. From LA to Mexico City was a three hour flight, meaning the plane would land a bit before sunrise when it was still dark out. The runway was obscured by fog.

As Flight 2605 approached MCIA, air traffic controllers cleared it for an instrument approach with the expectation of landing on Runway 23R. As the other runway (23L) was closed for repairs, the controllers expected the pilots to execute a sidestep maneuver to the open runway. To accomplish this, the crew would follow the ILS glide path toward Runway 23L, and as soon as they sighted the runway, they would reorient the aircraft to land on 23R. During the approach, the crew was advised four times by approach control or the tower that the intended landing runway was 23R. However, the controllers failed to communicate any phrases indicating a sidestep maneuver that American pilots would have understood. There was no published visual representation of the sidestep approach available to the pilots, and the airport's approach chart for 23R showed only ceiling and visibility minimums. Both pilots knew 23L was closed, as they had previously landed on 23R without incident while 23L was out of service.

The weather was deteriorating; the cockpit voice recorder recorded the F/O and captain agreeing they were cleared for 23R, but they were still on approach to 23L. The captain exclaimed "No this is the approach to the goddamn left." At a speed of 150 mph, the landing gear touched down with the right gear on the grass to the left of 23L and the right on the runway shoulder. The crew tried to abort the landing with go-around power. The F/O described the missed-approach procedure, a climb to 8,500 feet, in an unworried and casual manner as the DC-10 again became airborne. The right main gear struck a dump truck loaded with soil. Most of the landing gear broke off and collided with the right horizontal stabilizer. The truck was crushed by the landing gear, killing its driver and creating an extensive debris field.

The DC-10, still airborne with takeoff thrust engaged, rolled to the right and its bank angle increased until the right wing flap hit the cab of an excavator 4,900 feet from the runway threshold. The pilots panicked as Reichel yelled at Gilbert to "get it up." The right wing finally cut into the ground and taxiways next to the closed runway. The end of the wing eventually hit the corner of a hangar, damaging it and fracturing the wind. The plane collided with an Eastern Airlines service building and broke apart, damaging the concrete building and starting a fire that consumed most of the aircraft structure. Part of the left wing sailed well off airport grounds and crashed into a residential building on Matamoros Street, starting a four alarm fire there.

The 16 surviving passengers were found in a 20 foot long piece of fuselage that didn't burn. Large chunks of the hangar continued to fall on the wreckage for several minutes. A total of eight dead were never identified. One of the survivors later succumbed to his injuries.

Mexico's Directorate General of Civil Aeronautics investigated the crash. Its report said the cause of the accident was "Non-compliance with the meteorological minima for the approach procedure, as cleared; failure to comply with the aircraft's operating procedures during the approach phase, and landing on a runway closed to traffic." The Air Line Pilots Association conducted a separate investigation and acknowledged that the pilots landed on the wrong runway, but complained that the Mexican report was inadequate and contained numerous errors.

>>18754255
tl;dr is don't get on a Third World airline, and don't land at Third World airports