Chaos on board an Aeromexico flight was captured in dramatic footage after the plane was shot at at a Mexican airport following the arrest of Ovidio Guzman-Lopez, the son of notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
David Tellez, 42, shared cellphone footage on Twitter Thursday of a child crouching on the floor between seats in the background as horrified passengers aboard Aeromexico Flight 165 from Culiacan to Mexico City cried in the background. .
Tellez was flying home with his wife and three children, aged seven, four and one, after spending Christmas with his family.
“As we were speeding up to take off, we heard gunshots very close to the plane and that’s when we all threw ourselves down,” Tellez said.
Following the arrest of Guzmán-López, nicknamed “El Raton,” deadly violence erupted throughout the northern city of Culiacan. or “The Rat,” is said to have once been a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa drug cartel run by his now-imprisoned father.
The capture of the young king led to a widespread and violent shootout that left 10 Mexican military personnel and 19 suspected drug traffickers dead.
Tellez said he and his family made their flight to Culiacan airport at 8:24 a.m. without incident, despite encountering roadblocks set up after overnight shootings.
Shortly after Guzmán-López was captured, the car was detonated.
A person involved in drug trafficking was taken to a high-security prison.
El Chapo’s son, Ovidio Guzmán-López, caused chaos at a Mexican airport.
Mexico’s Defense Minister described the battle between the cartel and the authorities as a war.
Although Guzmán-López’s arrest has not yet been confirmed, security guards urged travelers to get in quickly.
When Tellez heard that cartel members were at the airport, he hid in an airport bathroom with his wife and children. The rumor turned out to be false, and the Aeromexico travelers boarded the plane.
As the commercial flight was about to take off, two large military jets landed with troops, along with three or four military helicopters, and Marines and soldiers began to line the perimeter of the runway.
Tellez took out his cell phone and recorded several videos of large Air Force transport planes, smaller, fighter-like attack planes and military trucks on the tarmac.
As Flight 165 was finally preparing to accelerate, Tellez heard gunshots in the distance. Within 15 seconds, the sound suddenly got louder and much closer, and the passengers threw themselves on the floor, he said.
He didn’t know the plane had been shot until the flight attendant told him it had hit the engine and sprung a leak. No one was injured, but the plane returned to the terminal.
The crew ordered the passengers to get off the plane and transferred them to the windowless waiting room at the airport.
On Friday, Mexican Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval described the battle in Culiacan as war-like: cartel gunmen opened fire on troops with .50-caliber machine guns, and the army responded by calling in Blackhawk helicopters to attack a group of 25 cartels. , including truck-mounted cartel weapon platforms.
Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán is currently serving a life sentence in the United States
El Chapo’s son, nicknamed “El Raton,” is suspected of running 11 meth labs.
King’s capture sparked mass shootings that left more than 25 dead.
Travelers were forced to sit in their seats during the shootout at the airport.
Although the plane’s engine was hit by a bullet, the passengers were not injured.
The cartel then opened fire on the military aircraft, forcing two of them to shoot down with “a large number of hits” on each of the two planes, Sandoval said.
The gang then sent armed gangs to attack fixed-wing aircraft, both military and civilian, at the city’s airport to prevent the government from taking Guzmán out of the city.
But Sandoval said the government, anticipating resistance, immediately loaded the cartel kingpin into a military helicopter to fly him directly back to Mexico City.
The 32-year-old trafficker was then taken by helicopter to a maximum security prison near Toluca.
Earlier, the US State Department offered a $5 million reward for information about Guzmán-López’s whereabouts. He was suspected of running 11 methamphetamine labs that produced 5,000 pounds of the deadly drug each month.
Her father is serving a life sentence in a federal prison in Colorado after being convicted in 2019 of criminal enterprise and distribution of cocaine.
With post wires
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