One of David Tellez’s small children exclaimed, “That’s an attack plane, Dad,” when they saw Mexican military planes landing beside their Aeromexico passenger plane early Thursday morning.
Then gunshots started.
After the event in the northern city of Culiacan, Tellez said, “As we were accelerating for take-off, we heard gunshots very close to the plane, and that’s when we all threw ourselves to the floor.”
Violence erupted around Culiacan on Thursday after the arrest of Ovidio Guzman, the senior member of the Sinaloa cartel and the son of the legendary drug lord El Chapo.
Aeromexico said that nobody aboard Tellez’s aircraft was injured. Shortly afterwards, the airport in Culiacan was closed while security personnel patrolled the city, which was littered with torched automobiles, in an effort to quell the violent retaliation.
After celebrating Christmas with family, Tellez, age 42, was travelling with his wife and three children, ages 7, 4, and 1.
He reported to Reuters that he arrived at the airport without incident for his 8:24 a.m. flight, despite confronting roadblocks put up following midnight gunfire. Although Guzman’s arrest had not yet been verified, jittery security officers pushed people to enter the airport as soon as possible.
He said over the phone, “Authorities were not saying anything.”
Tellez and his family fled into an airport washroom after learning that gang members were around. The report turned out to be untrue, and Aeromexico passengers boarded the plane swiftly.
Yet, just as flight AM165 to Mexico City was set to take off, a sequence of military jets arrived on the airfield.
Tellez got out his iPhone and recorded several videos of two huge air force transport planes, smaller assault aircraft resembling fighters, and military vehicles on the tarmac. Then gunfire was heard in the distance.
A video circulating on social media, which seemed to capture the same occurrence, had people huddled under their seats as a child cried.
A flight attendant reported that the engine had been struck, resulting in a leak. The staff advised passengers to depart and sent them to an airport waiting area without windows.
It is unclear who was being shot at.
On Friday, Tellez’s family will take another trip; until then, they are staying put.
“We prefer to stay at the airport until it’s safe to leave,” he said. “The city is worse. There is a lot of shooting and confusion.”
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