Mexicana Airlines Boeing 727-264 accident
Boeing 727-264 · Accident while taxiing
From Guadalajara International Airport (GDL) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87FA219
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Boeing 727-264
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 727
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- XAFIE
- Operator
- Mexicana Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Guadalajara International Airport (GDL), GuadalajaraTo Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 129: Foreign
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Taxi · from runway
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Passenger › Emergency procedure, initiated
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT LANDED ON RWY 25 LEFT AND WAS HOLDING SHORT OF 25 RIGHT FOR A CROSSING CLEARANCE WHEN THE FLIGHT ENGINEER STARTED THE APU. PASSENGERS SEATED IN THE AREA BETWEEN ROWS 20 AND 22 ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE CABIN OBSERVED A 'BRIGHT' YELLOW BLOSSOMING GLOW' EMANATE FROM THE APU DISCHARGE DUCT AND ERRONEOUSLY BELIEVED THIS TO BE A FIRE IN THE RIGHT WING. SEVERAL PASSENGERS SHOUTED 'FIRE,' AND, TWO PASSENGERS RUSHED TO THE 19 LEFT OVER WING EMERGENCY EXIT, OPENED IT AND DOVE OUT ONTO THE WING. OTHER PASSENGERS FOLLOWED THE FIRST TWO OUT ONTO THE WING. THE PANIC SPREAD TO THE FORWARD AND AFT AREAS OF THE CABIN AND THE PASSENGERS BEGAN RUSHING TOWARD THE DOORS. THE CREW HEARD THE SHOUTS OF FIRE AND SUBSEQUENTLY STOPPED THE AIRCRAFT AND ORDERED AN EVACUATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87FA219
- Event ID
- 20001213X30962
- Case number
- LAX87FA219
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1987-06-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0a50db7411488bb0ab48255a14114a7534204e6369fbca54eb4c856171110c2c; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:40:47.057Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for XAFIE; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.