Two planes nearly collided on the runway in Mexico City on Monday, as an AeroMéxico regional jet coming in for landing flew over and touched down in front of a Delta Air Lines Boeing 737 jet already beginning to take off.
Delta Flight 590 was starting to roll down the runway at Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juárez with 144 customers and six crew members on board when the pilots saw another plane land directly in front of it, the airline said in a statement.
Flight tracking website Flightradar 24 shows AeroMéxico Connect flight 1631, an Embraer 190 regional jet, flew less than 200 feet over the moving Delta plane then landed in front of them on runway 5R.
The pilots stopped the takeoff and returned to the terminal. The plane eventually took off on its flight to Atlanta about three hours late.
Delta said it reported the incident to Mexican aviation authorities, as well as the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board in the United States.
“Delta will fully cooperate with authorities as the circumstances around this flight are investigated,” the airline said in a statement. “We appreciate the flight crew’s actions to maintain situational awareness and act quickly – part of Delta’s extensive training.”
AeroMéxico and the Mexican civil aviation authority did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Mexico’s aviation safety rating was downgraded by the FAA in May 2021 for non-compliance with minimum international safety standards. The top level “category one” status was restored in September of 2023 after, “the FAA provided expertise and resources via technical assistance… to resolve the safety issues that led to the downgrade,” the agency said at the time.
CNN’s Alexandra Skores contributed to this report.
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
