[Red Badger]

FOR ONE THING, THE JET MAY HAVE BEEN 43 YEARS OLD!

And I would bet that Mexican A/C maintenance isn’t up to world class standards.............

[VTenigma]

This may have been merely a case of “spatial disorientation”, they entered the soup at about 400’, ADSB data shows this is about where they failed to make a 50 degree turn to the right, turned slightly to the left instead while gaining altitude to about 1500’ then it all started going bad. Some aviation insiders are looking seriously at this scenario. Mexican pilots not accustomed to the dense cloud cover in the Northeast last night may be the simplest answer.

[rdcbn1]

There was a report that an oxygen bottle was found a few miles from the crash site.

These bottles are filled to 3000 -4000 psi and if the valve breaks off, the bottle becomes an unguided missile. If the bottle explodes it's like a bomb going off.

At our research lab back in the day a grad student was moving a compressed nitrogen tank from the gas racks to his lab with the cap off. The tank fell off the cart and the fall sheared the valve off the tank.

The tank was propelled through a steel door and went through a brick wall and several sheet rock walls before it stopped. It's very possible that compressed gas bottle failure was involved in the crash.

[Robert DeLong]

Yeah, that is getting a little long in the tooth for an airplane that most likely is still used quite often.

Tragic event all the way around.

My wife, who was not my wife at the time. had this flight crash into her neighborhood in Kenner La., that was caused by a microburst:

Pan Am Flight 759

[dljordan]

“And I would bet that Mexican A/C maintenance isn’t up to world class standards.............”

Back when I was working as an A&P the U.S. carriers were sending their aircraft to Mexico for maintenance. :)