Mexican Newsreader Killed on First Lesson, Mexico, 9/20

Kenny Phillips

Kenny Phillips

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Kenny Phillips
Weird one.
metro.co.uk

Mexican news presenter killed in plane crash

Newsreader Debora Estrella, 43, and pilot Bryan Ballesteros were killed when the two-seater Cessna she was learning to fly in crashed to the ground by an industrial estate in the city of Garcia in the north-eastern state of Nuevo Leon.
metro.co.uk metro.co.uk
 
Well, that sucks. Far too many of these events end up being poor MX or hot dogging. Training and maintenance standards in Mexico simply aren't the same as the US. Who knows if this one will follow that pattern.
 
That looks like it happened at night. She was beginning flying lessons that day. Ok, it is weird
 
luvflyin said:
That looks like it happened at night. She was beginning flying lessons that day. Ok, it is weird
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Yeah, about 10-15 minutes after sunset. Near a river that runs next to the airport. Probably heading back from the lesson. Maybe miscalculated time? Maybe got delayed somewhere. Regardless the CFI should have been able to not stall spin at night.
 
It's really sad. There's no reason that learning to fly should be dangerous. I'll disagree with the article, I don't know what it is, but there is a reason why the accident happened. Does Mexico have an NTSB like group that is halfway likely to find a likely cause?
 
I’m going to throw out another possible contributor. There is a phenomenon when you put a guy(CFI?) with a pretty lady in a situation that he’s not accustomed to. The males brain power can be diminished, seen it myself.

https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/men-lose-their-minds-speaking-to-pretty-women-400852

Again, may not take Farrah Fawcett level looks, but can be a thing. The CFI ‘should’ of kept the flight safe.
 
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Albany Tom said:
It's really sad. There's no reason that learning to fly should be dangerous. I'll disagree with the article, I don't know what it is, but there is a reason why the accident happened. Does Mexico have an NTSB like group that is halfway likely to find a likely cause?
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The Agencia Federal de Aviación Civil (AFAC), which is like the Mexican FAA, handles investigations. Sometimes you'll see it referred to as DGAC (Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil), which it was called until a few years ago.

AFAC is a mostly competent, non-politicized, organization. Particularly for this wreck, if the initial reporting of a spiral descent holds true, it will be an open and shut case.

I've never been to Monterrey, so was curious about Garcia[1] and poked around on google maps. Looks like a pretty typical "old town, new money" area. There is a really nice looking historic city center with lots of middle class and upper middle class homes. And tons of modern cookie cutter subdivisions built up around it. Tons.

One of the links mentions that the plane went down in an industrial estate. I don't know which one, or where. But in any case, this isn't a cow town in the middle of nowhere. The likelihood of getting video of the crash seems very high between private security from the homes or commercial park, or public from the police. Mexico has done a huge rollout of video surveillance tools over the past decade.

[1] In an earlier post I guessed that they were coming back to land because they went down in the river next to the airport. I see now the mention of Garcia, which I had missed. The same river starts northwest of town, goes through the area and then past the airport on the southeast. So they were either doing something more like a discovery flight to see Monterrey at night or were very late on a first flight lesson.

1758719463956.png
 
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rwellner98 said:
I've never been to Monterrey, so was curious about Garcia and poked around on google maps. Looks like a pretty typical "old town, new money" area. There is a really nice looking historic city center with lots of middle class and upper middle class homes. And tons of modern cookie cutter subdivisions built up around it. Tons.
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Monterrey is the industrial center of Mexico. Lot's of automotive assembly, auto parts, appliance and other manufacturing plants located there. Used to be a very safe and prosperous city. Still is prosperous but the cartels have a much bigger presence there than in the past reducing the safety.
 
Hang 4 said:
Monterrey is the industrial center of Mexico. Lot's of automotive assembly, auto parts, appliance and other manufacturing plants located there. Used to be a very safe and prosperous city. Still is prosperous but the cartels have a much bigger presence there than in the past reducing the safety.
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Yeah, it comes and goes. A decade or so ago, I remember concerns there getting higher and the wealthy class spending time elsewhere for a while. I know the state is still sketchy. Sad to hear that Monterrey is also. When I did my google tour of Garcia, I was happy to see no evidence of tagging or other evidence of cartels. Images had last years time stamp.
 
rwellner98 said:
Yeah, it comes and goes. A decade or so ago, I remember concerns there getting higher and the wealthy class spending time elsewhere for a while. I know the state is still sketchy. Sad to hear that Monterrey is also. When I did my google tour of Garcia, I was happy to see no evidence of tagging or other evidence of cartels. Images had last years time stamp.
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My experience is much older, spent a lot of time there ~ 15-20 years ago. Very safe at that time. Think the better suburbs still have pretty good protection from the bad actors. I was more in the city itself and the industrial parks where my clients operated.
 
Trying not to be insensitive or disrespectful, but what is a news reader.?
 
Zeldman said:
Trying not to be insensitive or disrespectful, but what is a news reader.?
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Exactly what is sounds like. It more accurately conveys the role of the person seen on screen, who in the vast majority of cases no longer serves as "reporter". I believe the UK has titled the position "presenter".
 
It looks like a beautiful city from the above pic. Maybe they extended the flight just to see that.

Rather than ask here, I did a quick google to check to see if private pilots were expected to have any experience with night flying, like we do here, or if it was a separate endorsement, as I believe it is in the UK. What I found, not sure if true, is that VFR night flight isn't permitted at all? That night flights are IFR, and perhaps because of that there's no requirement for night training at all for their private, and only 5 hours/5 landings for their commercial. Not sure if it has any relation to the accident, but that seems strange.

Or maybe their night VFR restriction has nothing to do with airplane safety and more to do with the cartels and internal security problems. Guessing.
 
Albany Tom said:
It looks like a beautiful city from the above pic. Maybe they extended the flight just to see that.

Rather than ask here, I did a quick google to check to see if private pilots were expected to have any experience with night flying, like we do here, or if it was a separate endorsement, as I believe it is in the UK. What I found, not sure if true, is that VFR night flight isn't permitted at all? That night flights are IFR, and perhaps because of that there's no requirement for night training at all for their private, and only 5 hours/5 landings for their commercial. Not sure if it has any relation to the accident, but that seems strange.

Or maybe their night VFR restriction has nothing to do with airplane safety and more to do with the cartels and internal security problems. Guessing.
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I think you’d find a lot of countries that don’t allow VFR at night.
 
Albany Tom said:
It looks like a beautiful city from the above pic. Maybe they extended the flight just to see that.

Rather than ask here, I did a quick google to check to see if private pilots were expected to have any experience with night flying, like we do here, or if it was a separate endorsement, as I believe it is in the UK. What I found, not sure if true, is that VFR night flight isn't permitted at all? That night flights are IFR, and perhaps because of that there's no requirement for night training at all for their private, and only 5 hours/5 landings for their commercial. Not sure if it has any relation to the accident, but that seems strange.

Or maybe their night VFR restriction has nothing to do with airplane safety and more to do with the cartels and internal security problems. Guessing.
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Good catch on the "no vfr at night". That puts to rest any notion that they were doing something reasonable.

I'm also just guessing, but my guess is that it's more to do with terrain. Something like 70% of the country is mountains, so VFR at night is ill advised anyway. And IFR isn't achievable my most piston singles due to MEAs being too high.

But your theory isn't crazy. Mexico lost tons of private dirt strips since the late 80s due to pressure from the US. Especially in northern Mexico. The whole thing is dumb. It's not like a strip being taken from a law abiding pilot in Nuevo León is going to stop the cartels from taking off from a road, or putting their own strip in on-demand. Base on my experience hiring people to do road work in our community in Oaxaca I would guess that cleaning up an informal strip with a light dozer or mano de chango (backhoe) would cost less than an AMU.

Still I suppose it could be true that pressure was applied to stop VFR at night, as if the cartels would care about that rule.

Crossposted to rec.aviation.pilot
 
rwellner98 said:
Good catch on the "no vfr at night". That puts to rest any notion that they were doing something reasonable.

I'm also just guessing, but my guess is that it's more to do with terrain. Something like 70% of the country is mountains, so VFR at night is ill advised anyway. And IFR isn't achievable my most piston singles due to MEAs being too high.

But your theory isn't crazy. Mexico lost tons of private dirt strips since the late 80s due to pressure from the US. Especially in northern Mexico. The whole thing is dumb. It's not like a strip being taken from a law abiding pilot in Nuevo León is going to stop the cartels from taking off from a road, or putting their own strip in on-demand. Base on my experience hiring people to do road work in our community in Oaxaca I would guess that cleaning up an informal strip with a light dozer or mano de chango (backhoe) would cost less than an AMU.

Still I suppose it could be true that pressure was applied to stop VFR at night, as if the cartels would care about that rule.

Crossposted to rec.aviation.pilot
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Well they say it works for guns…
 
Flown into Monterrey many times in my Cherokee and my Columbia. It sits in a valley surrounded on all sides by mountains.

Garcia, otherwise known and San Pedro Garza Garcia is the rich part of town. I would bet dollars to donuts that’s where the girl lived and they were flying over her house.

The CFI worked for a big airline the article said….in past tense. So likely an ATP.

Article said two seater so probably a 150/152. Doesn’t look like there’s a fire, so maybe they ran it out of gas on the way back to MMND.

Yes, there is no VFR at night but night doesn’t begin until 30 minutes after sunset. They had time to get back to Del Norte
 
Ed Haywood said:
From the moderately bad actors. The really bad ones can get you anywhere they want, if they want.
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Was in the smoking area of a 5 star hotel in San Pedro Garza Garcia and met a nice American guy. Big shot for Kansas City Southern railroad

The next night I was there and this guy was leaning on a heavily fortified suburban while he was smoking and drinking a bourbon and a few guys with machine guns looked on

He looked a little drunk so I walked over and mentioned softly that these guys might not like him leaning on whichever drug lords car it happened to be

He laughed and said, “those are my guys and this is my car”

Can never be too safe in Mexico
 
cowtowner said:
Was in the smoking area of a 5 star hotel in San Pedro Garza Garcia and met a nice American guy. Big shot for Kansas City Southern railroad

The next night I was there and this guy was leaning on a heavily fortified suburban while he was smoking and drinking a bourbon and a few guys with machine guns looked on

He looked a little drunk so I walked over and mentioned softly that these guys might not like him leaning on whichever drug lords car it happened to be

He laughed and said, “those are my guys and this is my car”

Can never be too safe in Mexico
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AND!!!

Did he hire you or not?!?!
 
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