What happened
At approximately 01:59, an aircraft operating a scheduled flight from Mexico City to New York City began its takeoff roll at the New Orleans airport. The takeoff was observed by the tower controller to be normal, and the aircraft lifted off as expected. Shortly after departure, the crew acknowledged instructions to contact Departure Control.
By 02:00, the flight had departed the airport area. While the crew successfully acknowledged a request to switch radio frequencies, subsequent communications ceased. The last recorded transmission from the crew occurred at 02:03, when they acknowledged instructions to contact the New Orleans Air Route Traffic Control Center.
Radar monitoring showed the aircraft moving north of the airport. At 02:02, a radar handoff was completed between controllers. However, by 02:05, the radar target associated with the flight vanished from both the departure and center controller scopes. The last known position of the aircraft was approximately eight miles from the New Orleans VORTAC. The wreckage was later located at 14.5 miles on the 034-degree radial, where the plane had crashed into Lake Pontchartrain. The impact caused the aircraft to disintegrate, resulting in 58 fatalities.
Findings
At the time of the accident, the region was experiencing moderate to severe turbulence. Investigators determined that the primary factor in the accident was the degradation of aircraft stability characteristics during the turbulent conditions, which was caused by abnormal positions of the longitudinal trim components.