On May
4, 2007, a Kenya Airways jet with 114 people aboard crashed
in a dense forest in the West African nation of Cameroon.
Airline officials said they lost contact with the Boeing
737-800, bound for the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, 11 minutes
after its midnight takeoff from Douala, Cameroon. Kenya
Airways Flight 507, which originated in Ivory Coast,
was carrying 105 passengers from 23 countries, including
one American, and nine crew members.
When
the plane went down, a search was initially mounted about
150 miles away from its takeoff point of Douala, along
its eastward track towards Nairobi Kenya. This search
locale was predicated on an erroneously plotted brief
Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) signal. Flight 507's
ELT gave one brief transmission burst and then ceased,
presumably due to water damage during and after the crash.
It wasn't until some 40-plus hours later that the search
was redirected well back towards Douala. The plane's
impact crater was finally found in swampland just over
3 miles from the runway.
The precise location of the crash
site was less than three runway lengths from the end of
the runway. Local fishermen eventually led airport workers
to the downed plane. There were no survivors among the
105 passengers and crew. The aircraft had taken off an
hour late due to a drenching thunderstorm. Whatever pressure
the crew had been put under to eventually taken off into
the torrential rain may come out in the investigation.
Douala airport has no Air Traffic
Control or weather radar. Weather avoidance would have
been solely dependent upon the crew's interpretation of
their onboard weather radar just before rolling and just
after becoming airborne. Contrary to newspaper reports,
the pilots made no routine or emergency transmissions after
acknowledging their takeoff clearance. The plane's "black
box" flight data recorder was recovered on May 8 and
its data will be fully analyzed.
Initial conjecture has centered
on several possible causes: the 737's two engines flaming
out due to the torrential downpour, a single engine failure
with the crew mistakenly closing down the good engine,
or other human error. The crash is the first for Kenya
Airways in seven years; its last crash, also in Western
Africa, claimed 169 lives in January 2000.
Contact Lieff Global
Families whose loved ones were on Kenya Airways Flight 507 who wish to learn more about their legal rights are welcome to contact Lieff Global without any charge or obligation. Please click here to send us an email message. Alternatively, you may telephone us toll-free at 1-800-541-7358.
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Families whose loved ones have died or been injured in an airline crash are welcome to contact an aviation lawyer at Lieff Global by email to learn more about their legal rights. Lieff Global is representing families whose loved ones died in various airline crash tragedies. We welcome the opportunity to answer your questions free of charge, without obligation and in strict confidence.
Or call 415 788-8000 and ask to speak to attorney Lexi Hazam.
