The Mexico City-bound Embraer 190 passenger jet smashed into scrubland near the runway shortly after the plane took off from an airport in northern Durango state on Tuesday. All 103 passengers and crew survived by evacuating the plane before it caught fire.
“The impact was very strong. We wanted to think it was a lightening strike,” said Chicago resident and passenger Lorenzo Nunez. “It was terrible, absolutely terrible.” Nunez said he had been visiting family in Durango.