A Silk Way West Airlines Boeing 747-8 freighter took off from Mexico City for Houston on Tuesday. It wound up in Dallas, reported just 6,000 pounds of fuel remaining, and still asked to fly 210 miles to Houston. It would have taken a multiple of that to get there.
An air traffic controller said no. The controller declared the emergency for the crew and directed the plane into Dallas – Fort Worth, where it landed about 15 minutes later. The air traffic control conversation was remarkable. It’s ATC, and not the pilot, that declared an emergency.
Pilot: “PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN, Silk West 5722. We are running out of fuel, please.”
Controller: “Silk West 5722, how much—are you an emergency and going to DFW and land now, or what do you need? Say intentions.”
Pilot: “We need to land as soon as possible for runway 26 Right. We are short of fuel now. We called PAN-PAN three times.”
Controller: “Okay, sir, you are not even near Houston right now, sir. If you want to get to Houston, how much fuel do you have, sir? Because you’re several hundred miles out.”
Pilot: “We are only 6,000, 6,000.”
Controller: “You don’t have enough fuel, sir, to get to Houston. I have one [unclear]. Do you want to divert to DFW, sir?”
Pilot: “Yes, we go—we want to go to Houston. We are able to Houston now, but the shortcut, please.”
Controller: “All right. Silk West 5722 Heavy, verify 6,000 pounds of fuel.”
Pilot: “Affirm, 6,000, affirm.”
Controller: “Silk West 5722 Heavy, roger. We’re declaring an emergency at this time, sir. Maintain 11,000, fly heading 270.”
Pilot: “11,000 and heading 270, Silk West 5722 Heavy.”
Controller: “Silk West 5722 Heavy, you are now being diverted to DFW via an emergency. Silk West 5722 Heavy, expect DFW, fly heading 360.”
Pilot: “Heading 360, and confirm, now we have to go to Dallas–Fort Worth?”
Controller: “Affirmative. Silk West 5722 Heavy, cleared to DFW via radar vectors. Fly heading 360, descend and maintain 10,000.”
Pilot: “Descend and maintain 10,000 on heading 360, and prepare for Dallas–Fort Worth, Silk West 5722 Heavy.”
This is unbelievable.
Good job ATC, you saved the day for Silk West!
.
.@theatcapp pic.twitter.com/J3CEs9sDBw— Combat Learjet (@Combat_learjet) August 4, 2026
What On Earth Happened Here
Coming up from Mexico City some of the online commentary has suggested that the freighter just missed Houston, flying past it. But it actually never got within 150 miles of Houston Bush Intercontinental, passing to the west near San Antonio enroute to North Texas.
The flight was Silk Way West 7L5722/AZG5722, operated by Boeing 747-83QF VQ-BVB. It had departed Mexico City’s Felipe Ángeles airport for Houston but landed at DFW at 10:51 a.m. after 2 hours 21 minutes. The same flight took just 1 hour 44 minutes one week earlier.
- We don’t know how on earth this Houston-bound flight wound up in Dallas.
- We don’t know why on earth this pilot still wanted to fly to Houston without the fuel to do so.
- But it’s clear that air traffic control saved him. The controller helped the pilot understand that he had no choice but to land in Dallas rather than continue flying.
PAN-PAN was clear but the rest of the communication was a mess from the pilot. A crew needing priority because of low fuel should have declared an emergency and reported how many minutes of fuel remain. All that mattered here was that DFW was close, Houston was not, and remaining fuel wasn’t even close to get there.
Bigger question for me is: How the hell did they miss Houston from Mexico City and end up in Dallas? This is nuts that the pilot didn’t even seem to know where he was.
Gary,
The pilot declared “pan-pan, pan-pan, pan-pan”. Such a declaration is the pilot’s request for priority handling, but not the highest level of priority. Keep in mind “declaring an emergency” is a United States term and not recognized by ICAO. So the pilot did in fact notify ATC he needed priority handling.
I don’t know the 747, and I don’t know the fuel plan for this flight. If the pilot was below minimum fuel that should have been a “mayday mayday mayday” declaration.
So saying this pilot didn’t declare an emergency is incorrect.
I can’t believe the pilot wanted to push it to Houston with low fuel. What was he thinking?
It is more common to hear Pan-Pan-Pan by non-US aircrews. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it used in the US. Either way 6000 pounds of fuel in a 747-8F is way less than you should still be in the air with. I once did an unplanned diversion of 400 miles and landed a 747-400 with 9000 pounds of fuel. We had declared minimum fuel descending out of 39,000 feet. Any thought of flying 200 miles with 6000 pounds of fuel shows a real lack of situational awareness.
@Cletus – I may have used the term colloquially, but as you agree, he sought priority handling and did not declare mayday. After “pan-pan pan-pan pan-pan” he still wanted to fly to Houston not seek an immediate landing.
according to the flight number, this flight regularly operates from Mexico City NLU airport to IAH. The company appears to be from Azerbaijan. Cargo rights are more liberal than passenger traffic rights but it appears to be a valid question if this airline has qualified crew to be operating a route on the other side of the world from their home base and how much cheaper this carrier is charging than other carriers. It looks like a number of carriers including from the Middle East use ATL, DFW and IAH as stopover points for cargo flights from NLU
I live in Richardson, a suburb northeast of both Dallas Love Field and Dallas Ft. Worth, and saw these guys coming in low from the Southeast in what appeared to be a typical DAL approach path. My alarm bells were already ringing because Dallas Love doesn’t normally get heavy traffic, much less heavy cargo. Well, things got even weirder when suddenly, the plane a sharp right turn to the northeast over Plano/Garland area in what seemed to be a 2nd attempt at an approach. It was at that point that Flightradar24 showed the flight plan as a diversion from DAL to DFW. Keep in mind, the original flight plan was NLU – IAH, that’s two separate diversions!
So I have no idea what was going on in that cockpit, and I am not a pilot, but as a layman it seems like these guys had little idea where they were or where they were headed. Good job to ATC for cleaning up their mess though..
@Cletus — I believe the magic words are ‘mayday, mayday, mayday.’
Pan-pan and mayday are now standard phraseology in the US. Have been for at least 4 years. But yeah, flying past IAH to land in DAL? Something doesn’t add up. Luckily they made it.
During the Christmas holiday season, the correct distress call is “Patapan patapan.”
@Pilot93434 — Since you’re the 27,000 flight hours expert on here, correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s 3x for either, and mayday is life-threatening emergency, while pan-pan is urgent but not immediately dangerous, right? So, under these circumstances would you have gone with pan-pan or mayday?
Thought here–idiots who feared for their jobs if they didn’t put the bird where it was supposed to be. Panic about their mistakes kept them from seeing that they wouldn’t have made it.
What I want to know is why ATC didn’t catch these guys horrendously off course before the plane declared an emergency? No flight plan filed? No declaration of intent when arriving in US airspace? Yes, the pilots screwed up bad and should be fired but who was watching this plane when it crossed into US airspace and kept flying North instead of heading Northeast to IAH? Or is there some detail I’m missing here?
I am purely guessing, but won’t be surprised if the crew had a nice, refreshing nap after takeoff from Mexico City.
Too many air-chair quarterbacks, too much back seat driving. Many comments elsewhere that it was likely 6000 kg kilograms. Obviously either sensationalism or CC shilling here at VFTW which would get many more clicks if it returned to it’s roots and blogged about points and miles without regard to CC referral commissions.
@Polite — Oh, I see this is your first time at VFTW. Welcome to the show, Polite. Believe it or not, I think Gary actually gets plenty of engagement out of whatever he’s currently doing, sensational and all. (Gary, you really should do an updated analysis on the various blogs to see who’s in the lead these days!)
Polite doesn’t know what he is talking about as even 6k kg would not be within their margins to fly back to IAH safely. They would then get to IAH under a pan-pan-pan situation or worse without straight vectors. Maybe go back to your armchair. Fatty actually blogged this story correctly and should get kudos for that.
I agree with the comments here – HOW THE HELL did they get themselves into that situation. Wasn’t anyone monitoring fuel usage/remaining? How the hell did they fly past IAH to the west, as if heading for DFW?
6000 lbs. of fuel remaining on The Queen is most definitely a MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY and for the pilots to think they can make IAH which was, apparently, 210 NM away on that amount of fuel – I’m sorry, but these guys need to have their Licenses REVOKED!!!
Having been employed as an ExPat pilot for several foreign carriers, it’s not hard to understand how incidents like this can happen. Not every pilot flying for the world’s airlines are as trained and experienced as the airline pilots are in the US. And yes, it does have something to do with having 1500 hours and an ALTP to sit right seat, regardless of what Mr. Leff thinks.
Silk Way West Airlines is an Azerbaijani cargo airline interesting it was on a Mexico City to Houston run
Maybe they were flying VFR? (lol)
So a flight cross an international border, presumable IFR , flying with a squawk code and flight plan and ends up hundreds of miles off course and no one notices? Someone at Center sleeping? Not a security threat? Bells not going off? Sounds worse than Rio Grande board patrol, non existent.
We need Capt Steve on this one, this is huge.