Kenya Airways B737 Crash - Douala 5 May 2007

[Contract Dog]

speculation

114 missing after Kenyan plane crashes


Five Britons feared dead as brand-new aircraft comes down in forests of south Cameroon

Xan Rice in Nairobi
Sunday May 6, 2007The Observer

A Kenya Airways plane with 114 people on board, including five Britons, is thought to have crashed in dense forests of southern Cameroon.

The almost brand new Boeing 737-800 was reported missing shortly after taking off in poor weather late on Friday from Douala, the largest city in Cameroon, en route to Nairobi. Kenya Airways officials said yesterday that a distress signal had been picked up, but that wreckage had not been found. People living in several of the villages dotted through the forests of the sparsely populated area have reported hearing a loud boom.
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Earlier the airline confirmed that five Britons were among the passengers, who also included nationals of 22 countries. The Foreign Office would not confirm the missing Britons' identities and said there was confusion over passport numbers which might not have been properly recorded in Cameroon. But the Associated Press has said that its correspondent, Anthony Mitchell, a former Daily Express reporter now working for the news agency, was aboard.

Mitchell, originally from London, was flying home from an assignment in the Central African Republic to Nairobi, where he lives with his English wife Catherine, and their young son and baby daughter. He called his family shortly before boarding the flight to say it had been delayed by an hour due to a rainstorm. Chris Tomlinson, Nairobi bureau chief for Associated Press, said: 'We are hoping against hope that Anthony is OK.'
African airlines have a notoriously poor safety record, but Kenya Airways was regarded as one of the best on the continent. Partly owned by Air France-KLM, it has excellent links across Africa and is regarded as pretty safe. The airline's last major accident was in 2000, when 169 passengers died after one of its planes crashed after take-off in Abidjan, Ivory Coast - the same airport from which flight KQ507 took off on Friday, before stopping in Cameroon. Take off in Douala was delayed for an hour.
David Learmount, operations and safety editor at Flight International magazine, said the most likely cause of the crash was bad weather and the 'most puzzling thing' was why the weather radar warning system on board was not used to avoid a tropical storm.
Engineering failure is considered less likely because the aircraft was new and from cruising altitude the plane had a chance of gliding to land, and there is no evidence of another aircraft missing, which would point to a mid-air collision. Kenya Airways is also not considered a high-risk terrorism target, said Learmount. 'If I was putting money on this I'd say weather caused it because everything else is so unlikely. The next question would be why?'
At a news conference in Nairobi, Titus Naikuni, group managing director of Kenya Airways, said: 'The last message was received in Douala after take-off and thereafter the tower was unable to contact the plane.' He said that the plane was just six months old and low-flying spotter aircraft were searching a densely forested area 62 miles south-west of Yaounde, Cameroon's capital.
Kenyan Transport Minister Chirau Ali Mwakwere said the US was assisting in the search by providing satellite images of the flight path. He said it was too early to determine the cause of the accident.
Friends and colleagues of Mitchell in Nairobi and in the UK were preparing for the worst last night. Prior to working in Nairobi, he had worked in Ethiopia. He moved to Kenya after being expelled by the Ethiopian government for what it considered unfavourable reporting. In Kenya he soon earned a reputation as a sharp reporter. He and his wife were apparently planning to return to England in the near future. Greg Swift, deputy news editor of the Express, said: 'He is a really old-fashioned journalist who can pin down a story with intelligence and determination.'

Lets hope the FACTS come out soon, sounds unlikely that a 73 would go down due wx, Have flown with many Kenyan crew and they are dam good at what they do and and have cut their teeth in the middle of the ITCZ, am sure the crew was well aware of the wx and how to use a wx radar!

Dog