Air Memphis incident @ CAI ?

[CargoOne]

Colleague told me that local Egyptian news agency very recently featured Air Memphis B707F incident on takeoff from CAI heading to somewhere in East Europe. Wing strike on takeoff reported with the following crash-landing. Damaged wing, undercarriage and fuel leak, runway closed for several hours.

However I cannot find any details on internet... Any ideas other than my colleague was smoking something special?

[GotTheTshirt]

C1,
saw the aircraft in Amman about a week ago on maintenance.

Dont know if it happened since then.
Will check tomorrow
GTS

[doubleu-anker]

I think they had a problem but at Ostend, Belgium. Not Cairo.

[Stratocaster]

Mmmh, I don't know what to think about this one but I've already heard a similar story on a different aviation forum.

According to that report, the Air Memphis' last 707 SU-AVZ had problems during takeoff from Cairo on the 2nd of April. The message says the plane lost 2 engines and 2 landing gears (which means the plane is a writte-off).
:confused:

Any further info/confirmation would be appreciated.

[doubleu-anker]

Yes, my mistake. Going from Cairo to Ostend. Didnt make it.

According to the Belgium newspapers, did a 2 engine landing back at Cairo, total loss, but the Belgium authorities have become so nervous they have banned Air Memphis from Ostend.

Probably until they can prove they are fit to operate into Ostend. Might be easier said than done.

[CargoOne]

One way or other it is strange that nothing appeared on the internet and the sites like airdisaster.com

Or Egyptians trying to withhold such things these days in the light of Flash Air crash in January?

[GotTheTshirt]

C1,
just confirmed your man was not smoking anything stronger than Hubble:D
As above it happened on Takeoff about 1 week a go. Just after it left Amman when I saw it.
As above no real details ( Even from my guys in EgyptAir) except it happened on take off, aircraft is a write off and no one was hurt.

The aircraft was an ex RJ cargo and had Air Mephis on the side. They also have a second ex RJ cargo in Amman with not side markings.
They were working on it the last couple of days so looks like it is going into service !;)

Yes the lack of details is quite surprising:confused:

[CargoOne]

GotTheTshirt

Yep. Every second day there is a lot of noise around small things like inflight engine shutdown and almost nothing about this very serious incident.
It is even more strange that it happend at CAI, not somewhere in Dark Africa. For example MK and Hydro's 747F write-offs in Nigeria have been extensively covered in news within few hours.
:suspect:

[Stratocaster]

Over the last few months, an Egyptian operator crashed into the Red Sea, another one got an APU fire in Paris (the crew wanted to get out of there ASAP but a French official grounded the plane, and then it made a lot of noise in the media), and a third one got banned from French airspace because it almost landed in the streets of Nantes.

Not a very rosy description of the Egyptian civil aviation, isn't it ? Knowing how important tourists are to the country, I'm not particularly surprised to see just a few line here and there.

Moreover, this is a cargo plane full of... whatever. Who cares about freights dogs ?
;)

[doubleu-anker]

Air Memphis have been banned from Belgium airspace UFN, according to the local Belgium papers.

[CargoOne]

Stratocaster

As per my friend's memory (and Egyptian news report he've seen) it was a full load of fruits heading to Tallinn (TLL), Estonia. So I presume the commodity wasn't the reason to keep it away from publicity. Also 4-4.5 hours sector to TLL is not alerts MTOW issues...

I recall several articles in AirCargoNews (or AirCargoWeek) some time (year/s) ago featuring Air Memphis Stage III B707. Then I've heard they lost all hushkitted engines quite quick to lessor due to problems with payments. Anyone knows background/details, have they got this Stage III bird back to the sky?

[GotTheTshirt]

C1,
Verry Interesting but.......

Air Mephis took the 2 ex Royal Jordanian 707F
They bent the first one some months ago ( no details at the moment)
They then took the one that just bent in CAI from somewhere else.
They are now in AMM getting the second ex RJ up and running.
The 2 RJ aircraft were Stage 2 but the one last week in CAI was Stage 3


;)

GTS