PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico — A Texas man who owns a home in Puerto Vallarta said he was on what he believes was the last commercial flight out of Puerto Vallarta International Airport as cartel violence engulfed the city Sunday.
Texas man says he was on last flight out of Puerto Vallarta during cartel siege(Courtesy)
“I think I’m fortunate to have gotten out when I did,” he said.
Gunfire and explosions on the way to the airport
The man said he and his travel companion left early that morning to avoid construction near the airport after receiving an email warning about traffic delays. Around 8:15 a.m., while taking a shortcut around the main highway through downtown Vallarta, they encountered what he described as a cartel attack on a large delivery truck.
“They had riddled the truck with bullets,” he said, describing the truck as stopped in the middle of the highway with its windshields shot out. He said he observed approximately 10 men dressed in all black on motorcycles, positioned roughly 150 feet away, armed with handguns and AK-47s.
The group immediately turned around and took the main highway through downtown — a route he said was bombed in multiple locations approximately five minutes after they passed through.
Siege spreads across the city
Upon arriving at the airport, the man said there were no agents at the United Airlines counter. Between approximately 8:45 and 9 a.m., he said he began receiving a series of text messages indicating that Puerto Vallarta was under a cartel siege throughout the entire city.
He said ticket agents at the check-in counters were visibly monitoring their phones and speaking among themselves in Spanish. Once through security, he said airport shops began closing and restaurant workers gathered at the front of their establishments.
Looking outside, he said he could see thick black smoke rising across the city — to the south toward town and to the north toward Punta Mita.
“I’ve never seen smoke like that,” he said. “They were like billowing black, black smoke you’d expect to see if a plane had crashed.”
Last flight out
The man said his flight was originally scheduled to depart at 11:55 a.m. and that he and his companion had secured the last two first-class seats on the early departure. A gate agent told him the flight would be the last out of Puerto Vallarta that day and that the airline was working to collect an additional 80 passengers from other flights to get them to Houston.
While passengers were still boarding, the pilot received a report of a possible active shooter inside the airport. The man said he watched through his window as hundreds of people — including children, women and elderly passengers — poured out of the terminal onto a grassy area between the taxiway and the main runway.
He said a senior flight attendant began running the length of the plane, slamming overhead luggage compartments shut and shouting for an emergency takeoff while the aircraft was still connected to the jet bridge.
The pilot later announced over the intercom that municipal police had issued a shelter-in-place order for all of Puerto Vallarta and confirmed an active shooter warning.
Plane held on runway for roughly 90 minutes
The aircraft sat on the runway for approximately an hour and a half, the man said. Crew told passengers the airport had been abandoned due to the active shooter report and that there was no one in the air traffic control tower to authorize takeoff.
“Just sitting there so close to the physical airport is when I became nervous,” he said, “because anyone with a gun or an AK-47 could shoot at the plane.”
He said passengers had also heard reports that another plane in Mexico had been attacked and that the Guadalajara airport was under siege.
Authorities ultimately determined there was no active shooter threat at the airport. The man said he watched passengers run back into the airport, breaching all security measures just so their plane could take off approximately 30 minutes later.
“We all held our breath until we were well out over the Pacific Ocean,” he said. “I was convinced they’d try to shoot at the plane with an AK-47 as we were taking off.”
‘It was clearly an evacuation’
The man said most passengers on the flight appeared to be Americans, including around 80 passengers who had originally been ticketed to destinations other than Houston but boarded simply to leave Puerto Vallarta.
“It was clearly an evacuation,” he said. “It was chaotic, it was very stressful. People didn’t know if they were going to get out.”
He said two young girls were crying as they boarded with their mother. He described the scene outside the plane — with crowds surrounding the aircraft on the tarmac — as reminiscent of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“It felt like a refugee flight,” he said.
The man said he has driven to the airport from his villa in Puerto Vallarta hundreds of times. He said there were no police or ambulances visible anywhere in the city during the incident.
“The minute they heard it was cartel, everyone hibernated because they’re all so scared of the cartel — even the police,” he said.
“It was a scary, unsettling day,” he said.
The man said he is heartbroken for the people of Puerto Vallarta and the popular tourist town- a place he’s loved visiting since he was a young boy.
The flight landed in Houston safely around 2:45 p.m.
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