AeroMexico cabin crew stops drunk pilots from flying home

Cabin crew members of an AeroMexico flight stopped their flight deck colleagues from entering the cockpit when they suspected the pair were under the influence of alcohol. Local police were called and performed a breathalyzer test. The co-pilot tested positive, but the pilot refused to cooperate.

Since no spare flight crew was available in Costa Rica, the flight was delayed so a replacement crew could be flown in. The 101 passengers were compensated for the delay and made their way to Mexico City 24 hours later. According to a local newspaper, the pilots had been partying seven hours before their flight.

AeroMexico apologized for the incident and will be investigating the behavior of the pilots.

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[Photo: Flickr/So Cal Metro]

Was 9-9-09 a day for weirdos or what? Think religious Mexican hijacker and numerology

Yesterday I wrote a post about travel weirdos who inspire us to think and travel outside the box. After I wrote that post, I heard on the radio about a hijacker in Mexico who threatened an Aeromexico plane with what turned out to be a fake bomb as the plane was traveling between Cancun and Mexico City. As Katie posted, all’s well that end’s well. Passengers weren’t hurt and the hijacker was apprehended after the plane landed.

The news version of the hijacking that I heard is a nod towards the travel weirdness of yesterday. Here’s the scoop about the hijacker, a man named Jose Flores, that might have you glancing suspiciously at passengers boarding your plane …

According to the NPR story I heard, the reason Flores, a “Bible-carrying religious fanatic,” hijacked the plane was to get the attention of Felipe Calderon, Mexico’s President, to tell him about an impending earthquake. The hijacker knows about this earthquake because he saw it in a vision — a “divine revelation,” if you will. The reason he hijacked the plane yesterday was because of yesterday’s date. See? The date was weird. A vision told him so. Plus, it’s upside down 6s, so what do you expect? (Personally, I think the date looks like people dancing, but that’s just me.)

What adds to the weirdness of this story is that most passengers didn’t even know there was a hijacker in their midst until after the plane landed and they saw all the security vehicles and armed people surrounding the plane. The hijacked plane, from what I gather, took off from Cancun and landed in Mexico City as intended.

For an interesting analysis of yesterday’s date, check out this article in the Times of India. Yesterday’s date isn’t the only one that has attracted attention.

**correction. The hijacker was Bolivian, not Mexican.

AeroMexico plane hijacking resolved peacefully

Shortly after taking off from Cancun on Wednesday, the pilots of AeroMexico flight 737 radioed the control tower to say the plane had been hijacked. The hijacker had showed off a bomb (later found to be fake) and demanded to speak to Mexican President Felipe Calderon. He threatened to blow up the plane, which was carrying over 100 people, and said he needed to warn the President of an impending earthquake.

The hijacker was unable to get into the cockpit, and the plane landed safely in Mexico City, its intended destination. After the plane landed and taxied to a part of the runway designated for emergencies, passengers deplaned, and security forces boarded. They quickly apprehended who they thought were the nine hijackers, but it later became clear that there was only one, Bolivian-born Jose Flores, 44, who told police he was a Protestant Minister and that “it was a divine revelation that made him carry out his actions.” The other suspects, innocent passengers caught up in the confusion, were released.

Most of the passengers had no idea that the hijacking was even taking place until it was over, and no one was injured in the incident. This was Mexico‘s first major hijacking situation since 1972.

[via Washington Post]

Tucson international airport, international no more

In another “sign of the times”, Tucson international airport is about to lose its last remaining scheduled international flight.

Aeromexico had been flying the Tucson – Hermosillo route since the 80’s, making the trip 4 times a week.

The irony of the situation is that the final international flight will depart the same day the new Tucson international terminal is scheduled to open.

What the loss of this sole international flight means for the airport is unknown, but it is just another episode leading to what the WSJ Journal calls “terminal illness”.

Many smaller airports around the country are losing flights, and some carriers are abandoning smaller regional airports completely.

When your airport relies on a handful of flight operations each day, the loss of just a couple of them could be catastrophic. Airports have pumped Billions into terminal renovations in recent years, and some airports have even resorted to paying departing passengers cash incentives to pick their location over more popular airports.

The combination of a poor economy, high fuel prices (for the airlines) and a general decline in air travel will probably mean we’ll see more airports close parts of their terminal buildings while they wait for things to pick up again, or for new carriers to give them a chance. What this means to us, is that those living in smaller towns may have to make an extra connection, or drive to a different airport. Either way, it’s all pretty depressing.

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Heaven is a Commuter Flight Away

Just when you were despairing that you had to live in Europe to take advantage of cool, even exotic, get-away flights for your weekend, there’s hope. In less than four short hours from Los Angeles or three hours from Phoenix, you can really get away from it all. Los Mochis, Mexico, (airport code LMM) has daily flights from LAX, Phoenix, Tuscon, and other US cities, serviced by Aeromexico (and it’s sister, AeroLitoral).

When we went, Aeromexico, Aero California, and Delta all had direct flights to LAX and Phoenix. The direct flights have been discontinued, but the additional flying time is small (and included in the estimates above).

Now, this place feels remote. The airport is between Topolobampo and Los Mochis, but closer to the former. Topolobampo is best known as the port town for the big ferry from La Paz (across the Gulf of California in Baha). Los Mochis is substantially larger, and is well known as the terminus of the Copper Canyon train (aka Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad, aka “Chepe”).

Traveling the exact opposite direction from the other tourists, we were whisked from the airport in a 76 Dodge that was, quite possibly, the most beat-up vehicle I’ve ever driven in (and that’s saying a lot). The driver had to take us immediately to the gas station, after shaking us down for a downpayment on the fare. A few minutes later, we were in Topolobampo. Lucky for us, it had a single (brand new) motel, that didn’t appear in our guidebooks. And we were the only ones there.

The town itself isn’t much to speak of, but the town sports a long, pretty, largely deserted beach, that’s a short bus ride from town. Families came out to play in the sand. A couple of small restaurants served good, cheap food. We stayed late to enjoy the full sunset, almost completely alone, and ended up hitch-hiking back to town.

If we hadn’t needed to get on the Chepe, we could have stayed for days. And to think we got there in about the same time as some people’s daily commute.