Latest news with #Aeroméxico
New York Times
23-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Teachers Protest Shuts Down Mexico City's International Airport
A protest by a powerful Mexican teachers' union briefly halted flights at the main international airport in the capital on Friday afternoon. The demonstration for higher wages created scenes of chaos, delaying travel for thousands of passengers as security forces swarmed into the airport's terminals in a bid to assert order. The shutdown in Mexico City began about 2 p.m. local time and lasted about 20 minutes as hundreds of union members marched to the airport's entrances. The protest also snarled traffic on streets surrounding the airport, which is in a densely populated part of the city, and police officers were seen escorting stranded travelers to the airport in pickups. Officers in riot gear were also seen inside the airport. While the shutdown was brief, some international flights out of Mexico City were either canceled or delayed for hours on Friday. Airlines such as Aeroméxico were offering clients the chance to reschedule their flights without charge or to pay only a small difference in price. The protest reflects how Mexico's leftist president, Claudia Sheinbaum, is coming under pressure from some unions and social movements as a weak economy and a yawning budget deficit constrain her ability to raise wages and improve working conditions for many public employees. 'We have not received any attention or respect to resolve our demands, not even the most minimal ones, from the president,' Eva Hinojosa Tera, a union leader from Michoacán state, said in a radio interview on Friday. The organization staging the protest, the National Educational Workers Coordination, commonly known by its initials C.N.T.E., is a splinter group of Mexico's largest teachers' union and has participated in strikes and demonstrations for years. The 100,000-strong group's demands include doubling teacher salaries and appealing pension and education laws they deem harmful. Earlier this week, the group paralyzed traffic along one of Mexico City's most emblematic avenues, and Mexican journalists reported that they were assaulted by protesting union members outside the National Palace in the old city center. After those scenes of chaos played out on Mexico City's streets, Ms. Sheinbaum announced on Friday morning that she would cancel a scheduled meeting with union representatives. The president said she supported protests as long as they were 'peaceful' and offered the union the opportunity to meet instead with her interior and education ministers. What the government 'has given to the teachers is a lot — and I wish we could give more, because the teachers of Mexico deserve everything,' Ms. Sheinbaum said, adding that her administration could not afford to double the teachers' salaries. 'There are times when there are budget limitations,' she added. Last week, the Mexican government said it would raise teachers' salaries by 10 percent and offer an extra week of vacation. The announcement was welcomed by other teachers' unions — but not by the more militant C.N.T.E. Teachers' unions in Mexico have been active in organizing protests and strikes, including in 2013 and 2016, when the groups opposed laws that would have had teachers undergo mandatory evaluations. Some of the protests turned violent at the time. The current tensions between Ms. Sheinbaum and the teachers' union come at a pivotal time for her government. The authorities are preparing for elections on June 1, which will overhaul Mexico's judiciary, shifting to a system in which voters will select thousands of judges across the country from one in which judges are chosen based on training, expertise and years of experience. A mobilization of voters through unions, which generally support Ms. Sheinbaum's government, could play a decisive role in the election of more than 2,600 judges, from district judges up to Supreme Court justices. But the tensions with the protesting teachers' union could affect voter turnout and election results, political analysts have warned.
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
A look back at a 1986 fatal plane crash that changed aviation safety
WASHINGTON - Nearly three decades before last week's deadly mid-air collision between an American Airlines flight and a military helicopter, a deadly plane crash in Los Angeles changed aviation safety standards forever. The backstory On August 31, 1986, Aeroméxico Flight 498 was clipped by a private Piper PA-28 Archer in the skies above the Cerritos neighborhood of Los Angeles. The collision killed all 64 passengers on board the Aeromexico flight, all three aboard the PA-28 and 15 more on the ground. Read the full NTSB report from the 1986 collision here. The crash was the catalyst for change in America's air traffic system. In 1986 and before, the only way for pilots to avoid a collision was to visually see the aircraft. At the time, the only crash avoidance systems in the air were experimental. Following the tragic plane crash in 1986, the FAA began requiring that all commercial jets be equipped with a traffic collision avoidance system, also known as TCAS. Big picture view TCAS continuously detects other aircraft within about 12 miles. Transponders on planes with TCAS automatically communicate with each other and relay their position in the air – and pilots then determine what course to take. TCAS operates independently of ground-based equipment to provide pilots with guidance on how to avoid a potential collision. Dig deeper The American Airlines flight and the Black Hawk helicopter collided at too low of an altitude for TCAS to send an alert. That's how it's designed – TCAS avoids sending alerts at low altitudes to avoid distracting pilots and crew during takeoff and landing. "It is very unlikely that the TCAS on the airliner would have provided any alerts to the flight crew," said Wesley Olson, leader of the transportation and resilience group at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, in an interview with The Washington Post. READ MORE: NTSB investigates altitude data of Black Hawk helicopter in deadly midair collision
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Fatal lessons: World's worst midair collisions changed the course of aviation history
Each brought world press coverage of tragedies in the sky that left hundreds dead, mysteries swirling and quantum shifts in aviation safety. But sadly, despite decades of improvements in air-traffic control systems and jet safety, midair collisions are still a rare but unavoidable part of aviation history. Wednesday's collision between a commercial airplane and an Army helicopter near Ronald Reagan National Airport that killed 67 became the latest in a list of midair disasters that have haunted travelers, investigators and researchers for nearly a century. "It's the combination of the rarity as well as the almost immediacy of the tragedy, that's why it's so shocking," said University of North Dakota aviation professor Nicholas Wilson. Several experts told USA TODAY that the crash Thursday was the worst on U.S. soil since the late 80s, although there have been other notable collisions worldwide. The tragedies often galvanize sweeping changes in the industry to ensure nothing similar happens again. 'Our history has been riddled with aviation accidents since the Wright brothers,' said Air Force veteran and Western Michigan University professor Nicholas Rowe, 'and each one results in something we can learn.' Here are some of the worst, what caused them, and what changes happened after the tragedies: The last time America saw a midair disaster comparable to Wednesday's collision, it was so horrifying that it caused the entire industry to change, according to Wilson, the North Dakota aviation expert. Aeroméxico Flight 498 collided with a private plane over Los Angeles in 1986. The Piper PA-28 Cherokee clipped the tail of the commercial plane but it spelled disaster for everyone on board the two planes and many on the ground below. A total of 82 people died. The three people aboard the Cherokee were decapitated as the tail of the Aeroméxico plane tore through its cockpit, according to a National Transportation Safety Board investigation. The Cherokee slammed into a - mercifully - empty playground. Suburbanites living below the path of the Aeroméxico plane weren't so lucky. Flight 498 plummeted into a residential neighborhood, killing all 64 people on board, 15 people on the ground and injuring many others. An investigation by the transportation agency laid the blame on the Piper for entering the airspace without required clearance. The Federal Aviation Administration responded by requiring all commercial aircraft be equipped with a traffic collision avoidance system that monitors the air for other aircraft and warns pilots to either descend or ascend if another plane is nearby. The traffic collision avoidance systems have become so adept they are often more reliable than actual air traffic controllers. And crews ignoring the system's directions can lead their passengers into disaster. That's exactly what happened with BAL Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 when it collided with DHL International Aviation ME Flight 611 near the German-Swiss border in 2002, resulting in the death of all 71 aboard the two planes. The Bashkirian crew failed to follow the plane's traffic collision avoidance system, a German Federal Bureau of Aircraft investigation found, leading it to collide with the cargo airline. German investigators also laid blame on Swiss air traffic control for their management of the airspace. A distraught Russian man hunted down and killed the controller on duty in the wake of the tragedy that left the man's family dead. The collision led to a redesign of traffic collision avoidance systems to ensure directions were clear to pilots and highlighted the importance of following the traffic collision systems' directives even over conflicting orders from air traffic controllers. Aviation's first major midair collision happened when the industry was still in its Wild West days. Airspaces went unregulated, controllers left pilots responsible for keeping their distance from other aircraft and terrible tragedy ensued. The 'big one,' as Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University professor Robert Joslin calls it, happened over the Grand Canyon in 1956 when United Airlines Flight 718 collided with Trans World Airlines Flight 2. All 128 people on both planes died, making it the first commercial airline collision with over 100 deaths. The two planes were headed from Los Angeles to the Midwest when they collided over Arizona. Authorities responded by heightening air traffic control regulations to ensure pilots wouldn't be left to fend for themselves. 'Sometimes things like this have to happen to get things moving along,' Joslin said. 'It's very unfortunate.' The paramount need for aircraft vigilance even extends to when planes are on the ground. The worst collision of all time happened on a crowded tarmac on the Spanish island of Tenerife in 1977. KLM Flight 4805 was taking off when it ran broadside into Pan Am Flight 1736. All 248 people on board the KLM plane died; 335 of the 396 people on the Pan Am plane died. 583 died in total. The disaster happened amid a crowded day at the airport. Many aircraft had been diverted to Tenerife because of a bomb threat at another nearby destination. Visibility was poor due to fog. Spanish authorities concluded the KLM captain mistakenly believed air traffic control signaled the plane to take off. The disaster highlighted the importance of developing a standardized language for aeronautical communications and instilling exact compliance with air traffic control instructions. The world's deadliest midair collision also happened amid mistaken commands from air traffic control when Kazakhstan Airlines Flight 1907 collided with Saudia Flight 763 over the northern Indian city of Charkhi Dadri in 1996. All 349 people on board both planes died, making it the deadliest midair collision ever. Investigators found poor English language skills among the crew led them to misinterpret directions from air traffic control. They also found the crew aboard the Kazakhstan Airlines plane failed to maintain the proper altitude. India's aviation agency mandated all aircraft flying in and out of the country have a system to help avoid collisions. The mandates paved the way for traffic collision avoidance systems to be used worldwide. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fatal lessons: World's worst midair tragedies changed aviation history
