By Jerry Jordan, Editor
MEXICO CITY – Having an engine fail due to a suspected bird strike at 160 mph just seconds before takeoff was likely on any NASCAR crew member’s or driver’s bingo card as they boarded charter flights selected by NASCAR to ease some of the burdens of international travel heading to Mexico City.
But that was exactly what happened Thursday, June 12, for one of the flights carrying several drivers and team, including Ryan Ellis, who said that until recently he never worried about hopping on planes and flying across the country each week for racing.
According to Ellis, as the Sierra American Corp. flight, operated by Ameristar Jet Charter, began taxiing down the runway at Charlotte-Dougles International Airport, everything seemed fine … until it wasn’t.
“I didn’t really have flight anxiety until about five months ago when we had a severe altitude drop on a flight a few months ago,” Ellis said. “But this has definitely made it worse.”
Ellis said he wasn’t sitting near the window but he was on a row near the wing where the engine is mounted on the aging plane.
“It was a loud boom,” Ellis said. “We were going down the runway about to take off and all of a sudden we hear the boom and the plane immediately began trying to stop. I fly a lot and I wasn’t sure if we were going to stay on the runway.”
Ellis said it was almost quiet on the plane when everything was going down, adding that he didn’t recall anyone yelling or “freaking out.”
“We just all kind of looked at each other and I was thinking, oh man, this is gonna hurt,” he said. “I guess you get that from a bunch of guys that are used to driving racecars into walls. We are just a bunch of psychopaths.”
At first, it was believed one of the plane’s tires had blown on takeoff but then the captain came over the intercom and said he believed a bird may have flown into the engine. So far, it is unclear what actually happened to the engine. Also, an “occurrence report” concerning the aborted takeoff and/or bird strike has yet to be located in the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) online database. These reports are required to be made to the NTSB under Section 8305. A message seeking comment about the incident was left on an after-hours recorded line.
According to FAA records, the Boeing 737-205 was given its most recent “Air Worthiness Certificate” on December 12, 1998, but its original manufacture date was on May 16, 1985. That makes the plane just over 39 years old. The most recent action date was March 18, 2022, and its current certificate expires August 31, 2029. Also, according to the FAA database, the registered owner of the plane is Sierra American Corp. registered in Delaware and further research shows the plane flies under the Ameristar banner.
Ellis said that almost immediately he began looking for a commercial flight to Mexico City for the race because he didn’t think his original plane would be making the trip. He said he also wasn’t really comfortable reboarding it.
Chronicled through multiple posts on X, Ellis laid out his extensive delay in getting to Mexico City, one that involved more late flights, a trip to Miami and a padlock on his luggage that was “uncuttable.”
Ellis took a late-night flight to Miami and then boarded a flight from Miami to Mexico City with several others from the NASCAR community. Some of his team drove to Atlanta from Charlotte, took a flight to Austin and then traveled on to Mexico City.
“I made it,” he said, as he was walking through the garage area at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez facility.
Ellis will start Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race from Row 13 in the 25th position for DGM Racing.