Estado:
Fecha:	09 NOV 1999
Hora:	19:03
Tipo:	McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31F
Operador:	TAESA
Registración:	XA-TKN
Numéro de série:	47418/570
Año de Construcción:	1970
Horas Totales de la Célula:	58000
Ciclos:	59000
Motores:	2 Pratt & Whitney JT8D-7B
Tripulación:	Fatalidades: 5 / Ocupantes: 5
Pasajeros:	Fatalidades: 13 / Ocupantes: 13
Total:	Fatalidades: 18 / Ocupantes: 18
Daños en la Aeronave:	Destruido
Consecuencias:	Written off (damaged beyond repair)
Ubicación:	12 km (7.5 milles) de Uruapan (México)
Fase:	En ruta (ENR)
Naturaleza:	Vuelo Doméstico Programado
Aeropuerto de Salida:	Uruapan Airport (UPN/MMPN), México
Aeropuerto de Llegada:	Mexico City-Benito Juárez International Airport (MEX/MMMX), México
Número de Vuelo:	725

Descripción:
The DC-9 carried out the TAESA flight 725 Tijuana-Guadalajara-Uruapan-Mexico City was scheduled to depart from Uruapan at 18:25 for the final 45-minute leg. The aircraft took off from runway 20 at 18:59 when 85 passengers had deplaned at Uruapan. Witnesses reported that the airplane assumed a higher than normal nose high attitude as soon as it departed. The airplane impacted the ground in a nose low attitude on a heading of 110 degrees in an avocado grove located on the east side of the departure course, 3.3 DME miles south of the airport.
Prior to entering service with TAESA June 1998, the aircraft had been used by NASA and was modified to support the reduced-gravity mission. N650UG completed 193 flights for NASA (TT 436.3 hours) between May 29, 1995 and July 11, 1997.

Investigation revealed that the crew had not used the checklists prior to departure. During the night-time climbout the pilots were confused about which heading to fly during a runway 20 standard instrument departure. Spatial disorientation was probably also a factor in that the plane attained an abnormally high nose up attitude. The stall warning alarm then sounded and the plane entered a dive from which it was not able to recover.

Fuentes:
» El Informador
» James P. Withrow
» La Jornada