‘I knew it was going wrong’

– Shortly after boarding her flight in the northern Mexican state of Durango afternoon on Tuesday, Ashley Garcia had a premonition that something was wrong.

The 17-year-old high school student from Northlake, a suburb of Chicago, was one of 65 US citizens among the 103 passengers and crew aboard the Aeromexico passenger jet that crashed near the runway shortly after takeoff.

Garcia saw a storm was gathering fast in the distance and by the time the aircraft began preparing for takeoff it was battered by strong winds, hail and rain. Garcia captured the scene through her window with her cellphone.

“I had a gut feeling: just record it, just record it,” said Garcia.

The flight crashed moments after taking off, skidding to a halt in scrubland near the runway, a wing in flames. Passengers described how they followed escape procedures, enabling everyone to evacuate without any fatalities.

“We had been told so many times what to do,” Garcia said of the safety protocol passengers around the world are taught every time they board a plane. “No one ever thinks it’s going to happen until it happens to them.”

Investigators found the jet’s recorders and have still to determine the cause of the crash. Aeromexico said 64 people have been released from hospitals.