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This article is about the flight which crashed. For the airline company, see Wayfarer. For the minisode, see Wayfarer 515 (minisode).

Wayfarer 515 was a Boeing 737 commercial airliner that collided with a JM21 chartered plane mid-flight. The disaster occurred right above Albuquerque, New Mexico.("ABQ"). All 167 people aboard both planes were killed. However, the debris from the wreckage managed to avoid claiming any other victims on the ground and neither plane was full (515 was about two-thirds or three-quarters full).("No Más")

Walter White, who could be considered partially responsible for setting forth the chain of events leading to the crash, witnessed the collision while sitting in his backyard. Shortly after, debris, luggage, and human remains began to land in and around Albuquerque, including a half burnt pink teddy bear which landed in Walt's pool. Investigators with the NTSB and local law enforcement soon surrounded Albuquerque to respond to the crash. The extent of damage to the city from the crash is not fully known. However, Walt's house was directly in the path of the collision's debris field, resulting in numerous objects becoming strewn across the area after falling from the sky.

Overview[]

Cause of crash[]

The incident was due to air-traffic controller error, the man responsible being Donald Margolis. Donald, still grief-stricken over the recent death of his daughter, Jane Margolis, failed to direct the charter plane JM21 out of the path of Wayfarer 515 ("ABQ").

At the same time, the indirect cause of the incident was that Walter White was there when Jane was overdosing and chose to let her die in order to stop her from exposing his Heisenberg identity and enabling Jesse Pinkman's heroin habit. Since Jane's death did lead to Donald to become grief-stricken, it's easy to point out that Walt was also at fault for Wayfarer 515's and JM21's collision. ("Phoenix")

Aftermath and response[]

WayfarerSaulAd

The website for Wayfarer 515 victims on Saul's website

NoMas-5

Walt speaking at the high school assembly

Episode-3-Gus-760

Gus wearing a commemorative ribbon in "I.F.T."

For a period after the incident, many people wore light blue and orange ribbons in memory of tragedy. Saul Goodman wore his ribbon for a much longer time than others so as to drum up business in the form of lawsuits against the airline. "The tragedy is profound. The pain is profound. And believe me, the settlement will be profound."[1]

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Walt arguing with the officer

J. P. Wynne High School held an assembly led by Principal Carmen Molina to discuss the incident. After one of the students related how his neighbor found human legs in his front yard, Walt became defensive and urged everyone to look on the bright side of the disaster, saying that at least it was no Tenerife. ("No Más")

Walt was third–handedly responsible for this incident because of his second–hand culpability in Jane’s death, and it is very likely that he was aware of this later on. This ultimately culminated in Donald Margolis being unable to properly do his job and accidentally giving wrong instructions, allowing the collision to occur. Later on, Donald shot himself, presumably due to the combined grief and guilt over losing Jane and causing the incident. ("Green Light")

Walt argues with an officer over his broken windscreen and says that it was because of Wayfarer 515, in reality it was because of a concrete chunk Jesse threw on Walt's windscreen in a fit of rage. The argument carried on when Walt argued that he was expressing his first amendment by stepping out of the vehicle which resulted in the officer pepper spraying him. ("Caballo Sin Nombre")

Themes[]

The episodes "Seven Thirty-Seven", "Down", "Over" and "ABQ", depicted of a pink teddy bear in Walt's swimming pool. The teasers of the episode would show evidence being collected from the debris of Wayfarer 515. Though it was unknown to the audience at the time of teasers, it was revealed in ABQ that the teasers were the aftermath of the incident.

Trivia[]

2x13 Wayfarer crash 2

The crash, as seen from the air

WayfarerRibbon

The Wayfarer support ribbon

  • Walt says that with 167 people killed, this was tied for 50th among the worst aviation disasters in history. This matched the list of worst disasters at PlaneCrashInfo.com at the time of the statement, although this is no longer the case as of currently.
  • The crash is similar to two different mid-air collision disasters: the Überlingen mid-air collision in 2002 and Aeromexico Flight 498's mid air collision with a Piper PA-28 over Cerritos, California.
    • In the case of the Uberlingen disaster, two aircraft, one passenger and one cargo, collided in the midnight skies over Germany, killing all 71 people aboard both planes. The air traffic controller was later murdered by a family member of some of the victims.
    • In the case of the Aeromexico disaster, a passenger and a private aircraft also collided with each other, killing the 67 on board both planes and a further 15 on the ground, for a final death toll of 82 people. Additionally, another 8 people on the ground sustained minor injuries. The name of the Air Traffic Controller who was handling both aircraft was "Walter White".
  • Bryan Cranston's character Hal also caused a midair plane collision in the Malcolm in the Middle Season 6 episode "Hal Sleepwalks," in which two skywriting planes making a heart in the sky crash into each other. In contrast to this, it is played for comedic effect. Also, his character's father's name in Malcolm in the Middle is Walter Wilkerson.
  • Vince Gilligan called the plane accident an attempt to visualize "all the terrible grief that Walt has brought upon his loved ones" and "the judgment of God."
  • Walt started cooking methamphetamine to provide for his family. According to his calculations in the episode "Seven Thirty-Seven", he needed to leave $737,000 for his children. The accident aircraft was a Boeing 737.

Notes[]

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