On October 31, 1979, at 5:42 a.m. CST (UTC−06:00), the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 used on the flight crashed at Mexico City International Airport in fog after landing on a runway that was closed for maintenance.

[1]: 108 On October 31, 1979, the flight departed Los Angeles International Airport at 1:40 a.m. PST (UTC−08:00), and was scheduled to land well before sunrise in Mexico City.

[1][failed verification] The sky was quite dark, as twilight had only started five minutes before the crash, and ground fog obscured the runway.

The cockpit voice recording of the last seconds of the flight indicates that the first officer and captain agreed that they were cleared for 23R, though they were still on approach to 23L.

The first officer began to describe the ILS approach's missed-approach procedure, a climb to 8,500 feet (2,591 m), in a "nonurgent, perfunctory manner" as the DC-10 once again became airborne.

Approximately 3 seconds after the touchdown and in a 10-11-degree nose-up attitude, the right main gear collided with a dump truck loaded with 10 tons of earth.

[7][3][13] Part of the DC-10's left wing traveled well off airport grounds, impacting a residential building on Matamoros Street in the Peñón de los Baños colonia, causing a fire there too.

[14] Survivors reported that large pieces of the building continued to fall onto the wreckage of the aircraft several minutes after the crash as rescuers arrived on the scene.

[1][13][6] As of November 6, three people on board who had died had not yet been identified or claimed, and the coroner's office created face models of those victims to assist in identification.

[19] As Flight 2605 crashed on Mexican soil, the accident investigation was performed by the Directorate General of Civil Aeronautics (DGCA).

A primary point of disagreement between the official ICAO report and the ALPA study was the wording and description of the failed sidestep approach to Runway 23R.

The official report reads:"As shown by the flight recorder trace, the aircraft stayed on the correct flight path to Runway 23 Right for most of the time between the outer marker "Metro Eco" and Mexico City International Airport, and only deviated to the runway closed to traffic (23 Left) when at a height of (600 feet) above the ground during its final approach.

Further, it indicated that landing on the closed 23L required only that the crew continue their current flight path, which was a straight-in ILS approach to 23L.