Two Volaris Aircraft Almost Collide At Mexico City Airport After Incorrect ATC Clearance

Scary, maybe our airlines should stop servicing until they get their proverbial s*#t together, good thing other pilots have been acting as ATC to prevent another Tenerife!!!

Wasn't there an article here yesterday about how dangerous this airspace is? Was this the reason?

An old yarn: it's a "near hit," not a "near miss."

This was the same situation that caused the crash of US1493 at LAX in the early '90s. Controller cleared a Skywest turboprop to line up and wait while US 737 was inbound to the same runway. As it occurred at sunset the US pilots were landing directly into the sun and could not see the other aircraft. Thirty-five people lost their lives in that tragedy.

When you get a line-up-and-wait clearance, you need to have total situational awareness: Where are all other arriving traffic? Are crossing runways in use and what's going on on them? How long are you willing to sit still on the active runway without saying anything? Might the tower have forgotten about you? I'll accept that clearance if I'm situationally aware, but I won't like it—it raises a "certain anxiety".

Also, if you're on final and hear the tower tell someone to line up and wait, You sure want to hear "cleared for takeoff" well before you reach the threshold. I'm astounded that the Volaris reminded the tower he was in position on the runway and the tower still cleared the other Volaris to land. What the hell was the tower thinking??

Good grief! Could you see Harrison Ford landing there? If they don't get some controllers in that tower that know their asspirins from a hold in the ground someone is going to have a serious and deadly accident.

Totally agree

I see that Mexico City has two closely spaced parallel runways. Perhaps the controller meant to use one runway for departure and the other for landing. He might have said the wrong runway number by mistake. The arriving aircraft did the right thing by going around.

It's MEXICO. The only thing surprising here is that people aren't killed at this airport everyday.