News from Seattle (former home of Boeing):
Underlined area is my emphasis.
Kenya Airways crash raises many questions
Whatever happened on Kenya Airways Flight 507 that caused the new Boeing 737-800 to crash in an African jungle over the weekend could open a new chapter in jetliner accident investigations.
If the crash turns out to have been caused by mechanical failure, it would be the first involving several newer jetliner models from Boeing and Airbus that have exceptional safety records.
But the accident could also have been weather related, pilot error or even sabotage, an aviation expert said.
So far, there are only questions about why the plane went down shortly after taking off Saturday from Douala in the West African nation of Cameroon. It was headed for Nairobi. All 105 passengers and nine crewmembers were killed.
"At this point, it's a smoking-hole mystery," said John Nance of Tacoma, a former 737 pilot, author and aviation safety consultant for ABC news.
"We know we have lost one. We have no idea why."
He discounted press reports from the scene that the plane may have lost power in both engines while flying through a storm.
Whatever the cause turns out to be, this is hardly the kind of jetliner crash that for years has raised concerns about aviation safety in Africa. Typically, those accidents involved old jets operated by airlines with questionable maintenance and safety records.
Kenya Airways is highly regarded. It is experiencing phenomenal growth and has been moving aggressively to modernize its fleet. The airline was the first in sub-Sahara Africa to operate Boeing 777s and has ordered nine of Boeing's 787 Dreamliners.
And the 737-800 that crashed was not an aging plane. It was new, delivered by Boeing last October to Singapore Aircraft Leasing Enterprise, which leased it to Kenya Airways. The airline took delivery of two more 737-800s from the leasing company last year.
The jet that crashed had accumulated fewer than 500 cycles, according to Boeing. Each time a plane takes off and lands counts as one cycle.
This was only the second crash ever of one of Boeing's next-generation 737s in which passengers were killed. The first occurred in the heart of the Amazon jungle over Brazil in September when a 737-800 operated by Gol collided at 37,000 feet with a private jet. The private jet did not have cockpit equipment turned on that could have alerted the pilots they were on a collision course with the airliner.
All 155 people onboard the Gol 737 were killed. The private Legacy business jet, manufactured by Embraer, managed to land despite significant damage.
The Gol 737-800 was even newer than the Kenya Airways 737-800. It had been delivered to the Brazilian carrier by Boeing only a month before the mid-air collision.
Until the Gol accident, the only fatal accident involving a next-generation 737 occurred when a Southwest 737-700 was unable to stop after landing in a snowstorm at Chicago's Midway Airport. The plane went through a fence at the end of the runway and hit at least two cars, killing a 6-year-old boy in one.
Boeing makes four next-generation 737 models -- the 737-600, -700, -800 and -900. The first to enter airline service was the 737-700, with Southwest in December 1997.
Rather than an all-new design, these next-generation planes are based on the older "classic" 737s, but with extensive improvements and new systems.
More than 2,000 next-generation 737s are in operation with airlines around the world. The 737-800 entered airline service in the spring of 1998. It has become the best selling of the next-generation models. Through April, airlines had ordered 2,174 of the 737-800s, according to Boeing. About 1,000 of those have not yet been delivered.
Four other Boeing and Airbus planes that entered airline service in the 1990s -- the 777, 717, A330 and A340 -- have never had fatal accidents.
Boeing's 777, the company's last all-new jetliner, entered service in 1995. About 600 have been delivered to airlines around the world. The A340 and the A330 have been flying passengers since 1993. More than 700 are in operation.
Aviation experts say the lack of fatal accidents with these newest jets underscores the advances that have been made in aviation safety.
And that's what is puzzling about the Kenya Airways crash, said Nance, the safety consultant and former 737 pilot for Alaska Airlines.
Early media reports said investigators are focusing on weather. The plane apparently had delayed its takeoff for about an hour because of a storm.
James Ouma, chief pilot for Kenya Airways, told reporters that the Douala airport does not have weather radar. But the 737-800 has its own weather-radar system.
The Associated Press quoted an official close to the investigation as saying the jet may have flown through an intense storm that caused both engines to fail and the pilots were trying to glide the stricken jet back to the airport.
But Nance said the wreckage pattern does not fit that kind of accident. The 737 apparently nose-dived into a swamp about 12 miles from the airport. Unless the pilots stalled the plane, Nance said, it should have been able to make a crash landing in the jungle. But the accident scene suggests a more catastrophic impact, he said.
One possibility, Nance said, is pilot disorientation. But the 737-800 has instruments that would have warned the crew they were getting close to the ground.
"They would have to be really out to lunch for that to have happened," Nance said.
Massive flight control failure is another possibility, Nance said, but such an accident would be unprecedented for this kind of plane.
Sabotage is more likely, Nance said, or an accidental explosion in the baggage compartment.
Even an attack on the cockpit crew can't be ruled out, Nance said.
The National Transportation Safety Board in the U.S. said it is sending a team to the crash site to help in the investigation. So is Boeing.
The 737-800 carried two black boxes that will help investigators determine the cause of the crash, assuming they are found and the critical data can be retrieved. One black box would have recorded conversions in the cockpit between the two pilots and the sounds of any alarms going off. The other is the flight data recorder, which will tell investigators what was happening with the jet's hundreds of systems, including the engines and flight controls.
Boeing said the flight data recorder on the jet is one of the latest models and was able to record 1,000 parameters of information. For investigators, that could provide a gold mine of clues about what went wrong.
The Associated Press quoted a coast guard officer as saying late Monday that one of the jets' two black boxes had been recovered.