The aircraft undershot the runway during a VOR/ILS approach, collided with approach lights and caught fire. The aircraft was being repositioned from Mexico City to pick up 146 charter passengers bound for New York. Initially, one cabin crew member remained unaccounted for during the rescue operation that had saved the other seven, badly injured crew members. When rescue workers returned to the crash site the following morning to retrieve the remains of the missing crew member, the unaccounted for crew member was found in the burnt-out tail section, still alive but seriously injured. The navigator of the flight died on October 27, 1970 of injuries sustained in the accident. Authorities did not list this as a fatality because per ICAO Annex 13, because “for statistical uniformity only, an injury resulting in death within thirty days of the date of the accident is classified as a fatal injury”.