The video is only 20 seconds long. Passengers on Aeroméxico flight AM 165 to Mexico City this Thursday morning witnessed the horror of violence unleashed after the recapture of Ovidio Guzmán in Culiacan, Sinaloa. Men, women and children lie on the ground with panicked faces and seek cover between the frightened seats. Outside, the detonations don’t stop. “Why?” you hear a scared girl say. “Down, down,” replies a man. “Why, mom?” the little girl says again through tears. The plane, which was on the runway, was hit by bullets that hit the fuselage. “We were about to take off and the bullets started,” says David Téllez, the passenger who recorded those moments of fear on the plane. He, his wife and their three children, who heard children crying in the video, were returning home from a family Christmas vacation.
Minutes earlier, two Mexican Air Force planes, four single-seaters and a helicopter, landed on the runway. “They put someone on those planes, I think that’s what they came for,” says Téllez, 42, who watched the entire scene from his seat while waiting for takeoff. In one of the planes, Guzmán was transferred to Mexico City. The military planes were fired upon by organized crime, which had a confrontation with elements of the army on the runway. The attack eventually hit the airliner as well. After 9:00 a.m., the commander of the Aeroméxico flight informed the passengers that due to the violent events, it was necessary to return to the terminal. The aircraft failed to take off under these conditions. Although neither passengers nor crew were injured after the shooting, the company decided to cancel all of its flights at Sinaloa airports. The measure was also replicated by VivaAerobús and Volaris.
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The hail of bullets not only caused panic among the fifty passengers on Flight 165, but also among those in the terminal building. Like Ernesto Ramos, a 27-year-old photographer from Culiacán, who arrived on a 6:50 a.m. flight from Mexico City, unaware that he was landing in a war zone. “When we arrived, the National Guard suggested that we remain protected because it was very dangerous, but they gave us no further information. Through the internet, we started to see what was happening,” says Ramos.
In the photo the Aeroméxico flight 165 plane shot down this Thursday while preparing to take off Photo: David Téllez | Video: HR HH
The photographer and his friend tried to walk to another friend’s house but had to run back when the attack on the Air Force plane began. “It was a very tense moment. People ran into the terminal and went to the second floor for shelter,” the photographer recalls. Uncertainty and fear overcame everything. In the distance, the photographer recalls, several columns of black smoke could be seen from the capital. The Los Chapitos gang, one of the factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, unleashed chaos with lead and fire in response to the capture of their leader. “People from a restaurant closed the blinds of the facilities and told us: We’re getting news that the bad guys are already here. I suggest you put your family in a bathroom and don’t go out,” says David Téllez. Although the National Guard was blocking the way and guarding the airport, the narco’s shots sounded very close.
Around 10 a.m., Ramos says, the shots could be heard more and more. “About 10 people hid behind a pillar. At that moment you expect the worst, it was hell,” says the photographer, remembering something else: “I tagged my sister in case something happened. We thought they were about to enter and you know these people won’t respect you… I thought we might die”.
As the hours passed, the information trickled down. The images of the arrest and the riots were mixed with other false information that began to circulate on the networks. For example, a video saying that a group of armed men had taken over the airport terminal. “These pictures are false, armed men never entered,” says Ramos.
After more than 12 hours of waiting, around 300 people are preparing to spend the night of the Three Kings in the Culiacan terminal. David Téllez says the airline has distributed water and food to passengers and is waiting for more details about what is happening in the country to emerge. “We all know social networks,” adds Ernesto Ramos.
Local authorities are advising residents not to go out into the streets because vehicles and drug checkpoints are still burning there. The National Guard, which patrols the airport, tells travelers they are leaving the area “at their own risk.” Ernesto Ramos has managed to take refuge with a friend a kilometer from the terminal, while David Téllez continues with his family at the airport until they can board the next plane. He never thought his vacation would end in the nightmare that Culiacan became on January 5th. His video, which went around the world, clearly reflects how violence in Mexico reaches all corners of society. Also on board an airplane.
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