Kenya Air Plane Crash

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Aircrash: 'All we can do is pray'
06/05/2007 22:35 - (SA)

Desmond Thompson, Christel Raubenheimer


Johannesburg and Nairobi - The wives of two South Africans who were on an ill-fated flight from Douala in Cameroon to Nairobi, Kenya, are living in hope that their husbands will be found on Monday.

Sapa reports that seven South Africans were among the passengers aboard the Kenya Airways 737-800 Boeing that left Douala in Cameroon, bound for Nairobi, Kenya.

They have been named as Charles January of Profert Trading, Gordon Wright of Chevron, Conrad van der Westhuizen, Danny Barnard and two employees of electrical firm ABB, Gerard Kanda and Cornelius Hermanus van der Westhuizen, and Hans Peter Weder, sub-contractor with the firm.

Top MTN staff aboard

Also aboard were staff of the MTN Group. They are MTN Cameroon CEO Campbell Utton, Cameroon CFO Sarah Stewart and her husband, Adam James Stewart, company secretary Patrick Njamfa and network engineer Patrice Enam.

They were travelling to South Africa on business.

Sapa reported from Johannesburg that the wreckage of the Kenya Airways plane had been found, according to the South African Department of Foreign Affairs on Sunday.

Department spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said the Cameroonian government had officially confirmed that the wreckage of the plane had been found a 10-minute flight from Douala.

Mamoepa said rescue operations on Saturday had been hampered by bad weather, but resumed on Sunday morning with help from France, Britain and America.

On Sunday night about 20:20, Kenyan Airways spokesperson Glenn Lewington told Sapa the search had been called off for the evening and "nothing has been found".

He said the search would continue "first thing in the morning".

Wife flew to Kenya

The Kenya Airways flight KQ 507 crashed with 114 on board, on Friday night.

Beeld reported that the wives of two of the South African men were hoping on Sunday that their husbands would be found alive and well on Monday.

Estrelita January arrived in Kenya on Sunday to search for news of her husband, Charles, in the hope that he was still alive.

"It's the uncertainty that's the worst. I want to know what's going on," a tearful Estrelita told Beeld shortly after her arrival in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

With her was Mark Wingrove, a family friend who grew up with Charles.

He said: "We're like brothers. It's terrible to think that injured people are lying somewhere in the jungle without help."

Estrelita said: "I believe Charles is still alive. We have a boy, Connor (16 months), who's crazy about his daddy."

Her husband is the head of Profert Trading, a South African fertiliser firm.

She and her son moved from the Cape to Potchefstroom recently, to be nearer her husband's place of employment.

Estrelita and Wingrove were scheduled to fly to Cameroon on Monday, in the hope that Charles may have been admitted to a hospital there.

Asked everybody to pray for him

One of the three employees from ABB South Africa on the flight was Kerneels van der Westhuizen, 33, an electrical engineer from Eldoraigne in Centurion.

His wife, Maryke, was trying to console their son, 20-month-old Marco, on Sunday.

"They're busy looking for your daddy," said Maryke, wiping the tears from her face while Marco hid in his mom's lap.

"I've let everyone know, so that we can all pray together. That's all we can do for now," she said.

On Sunday morning, there was still the faint hope that her husband may have missed the flight, but even that was crushed when it was confirmed that his name was on the passenger list.

Maryke said: "The worst was the news on television (on Sunday) which said that 36 hours had passed since the crash.

"They said that if anyone had survived the impact, their chance of making it now, was dwindling."

The Van der Westhuizens' baby girl was stillborn a few years ago. Now, her husband is missing.

"I've had my share of drama. It just feels as if these things don't want to end," said Maryke.

Husband due to graduate on Tuesday

While she was on the way to the airport on Saturday to collect her husband she heard something on the radio about Cameroon and an aircraft, she said.

"I knew immediately that something was wrong."

To cap it all, her husband was to have graduated with a BTech degree in electrical engineering from Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria on Tuesday.

They chose clothes for him last week, especially for the occasion. - Beeld/Sapa
Click to expand...

Very sad news for everyone here @ MTN
 
Yeah, this is truly sad. The plane was 6 months old and Kenya Airways have a good reputation. I'd love to know what happened.
 
PiesangTee said:
Yeah, this is truly sad. The plane was 6 months old and Kenya Airways have a good reputation. I'd love to know what happened.
Click to expand...

Had a good reputation?
2 fatal crashes and they're a small airline compared to others.

Here is data for 1986 - 2006
I picked the airline with the worst safety record in North America which is Aloha Airlines. They mainly fly on the Pacific ocean side and are based at Honolulu, Hawaii.

Aloha Airlines
Last crash : 1989
Number of flights : 1.28 million
Number of fatal crashes : 1

Kenya Airways
Last crash : 2000
Number of flights 0.35 million
Number of fatal crashes : 1 (now two)

Out of 87 airlines Kenya Airways was rated as number 12 with the worst safety record and this includes airlines worldwide.
China Airlines was the worst with 6 fatal crashes out of 0.75 million flights.

As to what happened, hopefully we'll find out but losing power on both engines at the same time is normally a result of a flame-out due to too much water ingestion or fuel starvation/contamination.
Africa is notorious for water contaminated fuel - just ask any bush pilot.
Someone I knew died in a light aircraft crash in Mozambique due to water contaminated fuel - twin engined aircraft and both engines quit shortly after takeoff.

Other than that flame outs have been known to occur on some engines in heavy rains when at low thrust settings.
In particular certain 737 models have to be flown in rainy conditions with a high idle thrust of a minimum of 45% N1. Normal flight idle is about 32% N1 on the CFM-56.
I saw this info in a 737 POH (Pilots Operating Handbook) and it only affects a certain model of CFM-56 engine.
Read the FAA AD T88-13-51 if you want the full details.
Here is a bit more info : http://www.ntsb.gov/Recs/letters/2005/A05_19_20.pdf

Engine flame outs in heavy rain :
May 24, 1988, TACA Flight 110, a Salvadoran Boeing 737 - both engines flamed out and could not be restarted. Pilot managed to do a dead stick landing on a 1 mile patch of rain soaked dirt - no casualties and aircraft was undamaged!

Air Europe 737 descending through rain and hail over Thessaloniki, Greece - double flameout. Crew managed to restart the engines and land.

2002, a Garuda Indonesia 737, also descending among thunderstorms, suffered a double flameout over Java. Its crew ditched the airplane in a river; one person died, and there were a dozen serious injuries.

Since the Kenyan 737-800 was in the taking off and climbing phase of it's flight it would have been at high thrust settings (~84% to 88% N1) so a flame-out shouldn't have occurred due to heavy rain or hail. I'd lean more towards the contaminated fuel idea.
 
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Why assume it was a flame out... what about other controls and hydraulics for example. Also, how does Kenya airlines compare with other African carriers... Tanzania for example. 12th is really bad... so much for my good reputation theory - must be their current marketing hype. All I can say is that I have flown air tanzania and rwanda and it feels alot safer in a new air kenya plane as opposed to the ex SAA 747 from 1980 something that Tz airlines fly or the shabby rwandair flight.
 
PiesangTee said:
Why assume it was a flame out...
Click to expand...

Just some comments the crash investigators made about the aircraft possibly losing power in both engines at the same time before plunging down nose first.
Hopefully the black boxes will give us the real story.
 
how can they let a plane take off in such bad weather?

if you take how many flights there and how many crashes there are, its such a small percentage


i think more ppl die on our roads in one year than have died in plane crashes in the last 50 years
 
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