Aeronaves De México Pt3: Cuauhtli's Bumpy Jet Ride

By the end of the 1950s Aeronaves De México was on the lookout for more modern equipment than the two Britannias and trusty Sixes. In July 1960 a DC-8 took a Douglas sales team, including Mr Douglas Sr, to the Mexican capital on a demonstration tour. The trip was successful as a pair of DC-8-50s was ordered and in the interim prior to their delivery a single new DC-8-21 was purchased from the production line.

Aeronaves de Mexico Douglas DC-8-21 XA-XAX Aeroclassics 1:400 Scale Model Airliner

Even better the DC-8 on the way home established a world speed record of 2 hours 43 minutes between Mexico City and Los Angeles. The DC-8-21 selected for Aeronaves had originally been destined for Eastern as N8611. She was put into service in November 1960 registered as XA-XAX and named '20 De Novembre'. She appears to have introduced the now famous birdman logo representing the Eagle warrior god 'Cuauhtli'. Unfortunately XAX's career was short and she was the victim of the first in a series of disasters that were to befall Aeronaves' most modern aircraft types.

Less than 3 months after her delivery XAX was destroyed when on January 19, 1961 the aircraft aborted its take-off run from runway 07R at New York Idlewild. All four crew in the cockpit were killed but there were no fatalities amongst the 97 passengers. The aircraft however was written off. The circumstances of the crash itself appears very suspicious. There was a check pilot in the cockpit and it appears that, despite not being in either of the pilot seats, he reached forward and pulled the throttles back for some reason. The weather was poor at the time and there was some snow on the runway also, as well as their being the possibility that the pitot head heating hadn't been turned on, but even so the accident must be put down to human error.

1962 was a better year for the airline, which grew further as the relentless consolidation of the Mexican airline market continued. In February the routes of Trans Mar de Cortes were taken over. Then in August Aerovias Guest was also acquired. This carrier had started a Mexico City-Bermuda-Azores-Lisbon-Madrid route in 1948, which was later extended to Paris. SAS took control of Guest in 1959 but by May 1962 it was looking to get out and Aeronaves acquired nearly 88% of its shares. The airline also successfully expanded its routes naturally, getting permission to fly La Paz-Los Angeles and Mexico City-Tijuana-Los Angeles.

The crash of the airline's only DC-8 left it without a pure jet for over a year until May 10, 1962 when XA-NUS 'Acapulco', the first DC-8-51, was delivered. She was joined in November by XA-PEI 'Tenochititlan'. Neither of these aircraft would have happy careers either.

The DC-8s operated on Aerovias Guest's former international routes to Panama, Bogota, Caracas and Miami. They also began services to Toronto in July 1964 and Detroit in December. However following the loss of one of the Britannias in 1965, 1966 was an appalling year for the airline. By the end of it it had managed to create a depressing record of successfully writing off four of its first five jet aircraft within less than 4 years (1 Britannia and 3 DC-8s).

First XA-PEI was lost, on August 13, 1966. She had returned from a New York - Mexico City sector just after midnight and been refueled for a 01:14 takeoff. This was a training flight and so thankfully only 6 people were onboard. The plane crashed during a turn whilst approaching Acapulco with the probable cause determined to be a "careless and untimely descent undertaking a turn which was continued below minimum altitude". All 6 crew were killed.

XA-NUS crashed on Texcoco Lakebed

The year ended especially badly when on Christmas Eve XA-NUS was also crashed. This time the aircraft had 10 crew and 99 passengers onboard but once again the airline rode its luck and no passengers were killed. The aircraft was operating another New York - Mexico City sector and crash landed on the dry Texcoco Lake on approach to its homebase.

Aeromexico's DC-8 fleet in the 1960s

Fortunately for the airline by the time it lost the latter pair of DC-8s further series 51s had been delivered. XA-PIK arrived in April 1964 whilst luckily XA-SIA and SIB arrived in October 1966. The airline's last new DC-8-51, XA-SID, joined in February 1968 bringing the fleet up to 4 examples. These would be far from the last DC-8s the airline operated and the history of the DC-8 in Mexico from the 1970s onwards will be the content of part 4 of our look at Aeronaves De México.

References

What, When, How: Aeromexico
Airplane Issue 202: Civil Aviation - Aeromexico
Aviation Safety Network: XA-XAX
Aviation Safety Network: XA-PEI
Aviation Safety Network: XA-NUS
Airline Timetable Images
RZjets