The flight proceeded normally until the final phase, when adverse weather conditions began to close available options one by one. After prolonged holds over the Buenos Aires area due to severe storms in Ezeiza, the commander assessed the possibility of diverting first to Córdoba and then to Montevideo. With fuel descending to critical levels and no operational airports in the metropolitan area, the crew made the most extreme and least frequent decision in commercial aviation: to declare Mayday, the international distress signal reserved for serious and imminent life-threatening emergencies. Following that communication, the aircraft received absolute priority and managed to land at Ezeiza. The silence contrasts with the magnitude of situations that, although invisible to most, occur over densely populated cities and remind us that air safety often relies on episodes that almost no one ever gets to know. Sources consulted: La Nación; technical reports from civil aviation; testimonies from passengers and residents; records of aeronautical incidents in Argentina. What was for the public merely a nighttime scare, for the crew represented a sequence of critical decisions under maximum pressure. The case brought to light a particularly sensitive situation: a long-range aircraft operating in the metropolitan area without any alternate airports available. The incident brought to the forefront the risk posed by the presence of these devices near metropolitan airports, especially during phases of flight where there is no margin for error. Most of these events are limited to technical reports, internal analyses, and operational safety statistics. Both alternatives were ruled out: both airports were closed due to bad weather. Buenos Aires, September 20, 2025 – Total News Agency-TNA – A Mayday declaration over the Buenos Aires conurbation, with a large aircraft flying at low altitude and fuel at critical levels, exposed a little-known reality of commercial aviation: serious emergencies that are resolved in silence, far from public knowledge, yet which test the safety margins of the air system daily. The episode occurred on the night of September 20, 2025, and starred a Boeing 777 of Ethiopian Airlines that had departed at 20:32 from Guarulhos, in São Paulo, heading to the international airport Ministro Pistarini, in Ezeiza. The impacts were of such intensity that 14 passengers and four crew members suffered significant injuries and had to be assisted by airport medical services after landing. The flight reached its destination, but the episode exposed the risks associated with extreme weather phenomena in critical stages of flight. Another incident triggered alarms of a different nature. In Isidro Casanova, in the La Matanza district, several residents were surprised by the roar of the engines and the unusually low altitude of the aircraft. For residents in some western areas of the conurbation, the emergency did not go unnoticed. However, behind each one there are crews trained to manage the unthinkable, systems designed to absorb failures, and decisions made in seconds. For this investigation, the operators mentioned were consulted, but preferred not to make statements. Far from being an exception, this is a scenario that, with different variations, is repeated thousands of times a year in world aviation and rarely transcends technical reports. Previous incidents in Argentina reinforce this claim. On board were 148 passengers, a crew of ten people, and a mechanic. On October 3, 2014, at noon, a Boeing 777 flying from New York to Ezeiza passed through a zone of severe turbulence during the descent phase, about 130 nautical miles from the VOR EZE. 'Everything was shaking,' wrote one of them on social media. They usually do not result in official statements or public dissemination, unless the consequences are serious. The impact occurred at about 200 feet in altitude and barely a kilometer from the air terminal. On November 11, 2017, at 13:15, a Boeing 737 of Aerolíneas Argentinas covering the Trelew–Buenos Aires route suffered an impact during the final approach to runway 13 of Aeroparque. 'It passed over our house, a deafening roar.' The hypothesis that the investigators evaluated was unsettling: the possible collision with a drone.
