May 15. A near-collision of two jets in Mexico City was captured on video May 7, stunning the nation. One plane was about to land, the other cleared for takeoff on the same runway at Benito Juárez International Airport; both flights were operated by the discount airline Volaris. Within two days, Víctor Manuel Hernández Sandoval, director of navigation services for Mexican Air Space—the country’s air-traffic control authority—had resigned.
Confidence in Mexican air safety remains shaken, because the circumstances that led to the close call run deeper than the competency of one man. The near-disaster has reignited a public debate about whether changes to the funding and infrastructure of Mexico’s air-transportation network, executed under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, have made Mexico’s airspace dangerous.
Source: WSJ
