Kenya Airways Flight 507

Accident

Flight 507 was one of three scheduled to depart from Douala Airport around midnight that day, with two other flights operated by Cameroon Airlines and Royal Air Maroc. The aircrew of the Cameroonian and the Moroccan companies elected to wait for the weather to improve, while the Kenya Airways crew decided to depart, as they had already been delayed over an hour and the pilot felt that the weather had improved enough for departure. The pilot in command nonetheless failed to seek takeoff clearance from the Airport Control Tower and the aircraft departed Douala at 00:06 local time on 5 May (23:06 UTC on 4 May); the flight was due to arrive in Nairobi at 06:15 local time (03:15 UTC).

Once airborne, the plane had a tendency to bank right, which the captain countered by using his control wheel. Twenty-four seconds after take-off, at an altitude of 1,000 ft, the captain let go of the control wheel, and eighteen seconds later called out "Ok, command", indicating to the first officer to engage the autopilot. This command was not read back by the first officer indicating that he had not acknowledged the command and neither was there audio confirmation in the cockpit indicating that the autopilot had been engaged. In the 55 seconds that followed, the aircraft was being piloted by neither pilot nor the autopilot. This led to it gradually increasing its banking angle from less than 1°, at the time the captain let go of the control wheel, to 34° when the bank angle warning came on. The captain may have panicked at the sound of the banking angle warning, as he made a series of movements on the control wheel which only aggravated the situation. He moved the control wheel first left, then 40° right, then 11° to the left. With the plane banking at 50°, a belated attempt was made to engage the autopilot. The captain then tried to bring the plane under control by using the right rudder, causing it to bank further to the right. The first officer gave the control wheel near opposite commands to what the captain had done. The captain, on noticing this, engaged the autopilot, but by then the plane was banked at nearly 115° to the right at 2,290 ft altitude and was in an unrecoverable situation. It crashed into a mangrove swamp less than two minutes after takeoff.

There were no communications between the aircraft and the ground after take-off. Kenya Airways set up a crisis management center at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.

The wreckage was discovered on 6 May in a swamp, some 20 km southeast of Douala, submerged under mud and water. There were no survivors. Furthermore, Kenya Airways Group managing director Titus Naikuni said in Nairobi that local people had led rescuers to the crash site. Cameroon's Minister of State for Territorial Administration Hamidou Yaya Marafa told a news conference that day, "All I can say for now is that the wreckage of the plane has been located in the small village of Mbanga Pongo, in the Douala III subdivision. We are putting in place rescue measures." Kenya Airways reported that 29 bodies had been recovered from the crash site, while reports from Cameroon claimed that over 40 had been recovered. Workers reported that the bodies were "badly disfigured" and that identification would be difficult. Heavy rains in the area continued to hamper all efforts.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved, registration 5Y-KYA, serial number 35069, was a Boeing 737-8AL that was equipped with twin CFMI CFM56-7B26 powerplants. The airframe first flew on 9 October 2006, and was delivered to Kenya Airways on 27 October. The aircraft was months old at the time of the accident. It was one of three Boeing 737–800s Kenya Airways had recently acquired from Singapore Aircraft Leasing Enterprise.

Passengers and crew

Kenya Airways disclosed a passenger list indicating that the 105 passengers on board were citizens of 26 countries. Thirty-seven people were from Cameroon, and nine of the occupants were Kenyan. Seventeen passengers boarded in Abidjan, while the rest did so in Douala.

The six flight crew members were all Kenyan. An accompanying engineer and a deadheading flight attendant were among the passengers.

Captain Francis Mbatia Wamwea (aged 52)—who had logged 8,500 hours on jetliners—and first officer Andrew Wanyoike Kiuru (aged 23) had joined the airline 20 years and one year, respectively, before the accident.

Among the passengers on board was Anthony Mitchell, an Associated Press reporter based in Kenya.

Investigation

The Cameroonian government established a technical commission of inquiry to investigate the accident. The National Transportation Safety Board of the United States sent a "Go-team" to assist with the investigation.

Early attention as to the cause of the crash centred on the possibility of dual engine flameout during heavy weather. Several clues pointed in this direction, including the time the plane was in the air, the distress call issued by the aircraft (both later disputed), the meteorological conditions at the time of the crash, and the nose-down position of the wreckage. The investigators theorised that this would be consistent with the plane losing power in both engines, attempting to glide back to the airport, and stalling during the attempt.

The flight data recorder (FDR) was recovered on 7 May, and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) on 15 June. Both were sent to the Transportation Safety Board in Canada where they were read out.

The Cameroon Civil Aviation Authority (CCAA) released its final report on the crash on 28 April 2010. The investigation found that the aircraft departed without receiving clearance from air traffic control. The captain, who was the flying pilot, corrected a right bank several times after takeoff. After 42 seconds of flight, the captain indicated that he had activated the autopilot. The autopilot did not engage, nor was the message acknowledged by the copilot. The pilots did not notice that the aircraft was increasingly banking to the right, from 11° when the captain indicated that he had set the autopilot, to 34° when a bank angle warning sounded 40 seconds later. The captain then activated the autopilot, but his inputs on the controls led to a further increase in the bank angle. The aircraft pitched nose down after it reached a height of 2900 ft with a 115° right bank. The two pilots used opposite and conflicting control inputs to attempt to recover the aircraft. The aircraft crashed at 287 kn, at 48° down pitch and 60° right bank.

During captain Wamwea's upgrade training, his instructors recorded the following deficiencies: crew resource management skills, adherence to standard operating procedures, cockpit scan, and situational awareness. A 2002 training reported noted that the captain had a tendency to be overbearing towards his coworkers. The captain had also failed a line check on a scheduled passenger flight when he decided to divert after the standby Attitude Direction Indicator (ADI) failed. He underwent a re-check and passed. Even after becoming captain, these deficiencies were still noted, and instructors filed reports on them. The airline dealt with all of the reports and made remedial recommendations. Other Kenya Airways pilots described Captain Wamea as overconfident and arrogant, but friendly. The CCAA stated that his behavior was likely influenced by his training setbacks. During flight 507, he behaved towards first officer Kiuru in a "paternal" manner.

First officer Kiuru had also failed an instrument flight rules (IFR) and a radiotelephony (R/T) test and had to retake both of them. Although his overall performance was satisfactory, instructors noticed that Kiuru had issues monitoring errors of the pilot flying and calling them out, as well as monitoring the autopilot after engaging it. Coworkers described Kiuru as reserved and not assertive. During flight 507, he was intimidated by captain Wamwea treating him disrespectfully (although he had given Kiuru some words of encouragement), and did not challenge him for his mistakes, instead relying on the captain's confidence.

The CCAA determined the probable causes of the crash to be "loss of control of the aircraft as a result of spatial disorientation (non recognized or subtle type transitioning to recognized spatial disorientation) after a long slow roll, during which no instrument scanning was done, and in the absence of external visual references in a dark night. Inadequate operational control, lack of crew coordination, coupled with the non-adherence to procedures of flight monitoring, confusion in the utilization of the autopilot, have also contributed to cause this situation."

In popular culture

The accident is featured in the ninth episode of Season 20 of Mayday, also known as Air Crash Investigation. The episode is titled "Stormy Cockpit".

References

References

1. (7 May 2007). "No chance of survivors from Kenya plane – Cameroon".
2. (2017-04-27). "What Really Happened on KQ Flight 507? – Owaahh". Owaahh.
3. Jotischky, Tim. (2012-03-18). "The tragedy of Flight KQ507". The Daily Telegraph.
4. (8 May 2007). "Flight KQ 507:29 bodies recovered". KBC.
5. (5 May 2007). "Plane was one of KQ's newly acquired crafts". [[Sunday Times]].
6. (6 May 2007). "6 Nigerians, 108 others feared killed in plane crash". [[The Punch]].
7. "Full list of Passengers of Flight KQ 507". Kenya Airways.
8. "Tragedy of KQ 507". Daily Nation.
9. Rice, Xan. (7 May 2007). "Missing Britons named as plane's wreckage is found in Cameroon jungle". [[The Guardian]].
10. (28 April 2015). "Technical Investigation into the Accident of the B737-800 Registration 5Y-KYA Operated by Kenya Airways that Occurred the 5th of May 2007 in Douala". [[Cameroon Civil Aviation Authority]].
11. (29 October 2007). "Engine failure probed in Kenyan crash". Associated Press.
12. Kamali, Geoffrey. (15 May 2007). "KQ Resumes Cameroon Flights". allAfrica.
13. (18 June 2007). "Kenyan flight KQ 507 – Cockpit voice recorder recovered".
14. Mentour Pilot. (2023-02-26). "Who Is Flying?! The Unbelievable Story of Kenya Airlines flight 507".
15. {{IMDb title
16. Learmount, David. (7 January 2008). "Accidents/incidents for 2007 – Fatal accidents: scheduled passenger flights". [[Flightglobal]].
17. (8 May 2007). "Amol Chauhan mourned". [[The Hindu]].
18. {{ASN accident
19. (7 May 2007). "'No survivors' in Cameroon crash". [[BBC News]].
20. (6 May 2007). "Cameroon finds Kenya plane, no word of survivors". [[Reuters]].
21. Kaminski-Morrow, David. (5 June 2007). "Canadian investigators to analyse crashed 737 data". Flightglobal.
22. Vogt, Heidi. (8 May 2007). "Grim Work Continues at Plane Crash Site". [[The Washington Post]].
23. Kaminski-Morrow, David. (15 May 2007). "Investigators trawl swamps for clues on Kenya 737 crash". Flightglobal.
24. (8 May 2007). "Kenya Airways Boeing 737 black box found". Flightglobal.
25. Kaminski-Morrow, David. (5 May 2007). "Kenya Airways Boeing 737 crashes in Cameroon". Flightglobal.
26. (6 May 2007). "Kenya Air Jet Goes Down in Cameroon". [[The New York Times]].
27. Kaminiski-Morrow, David. (28 April 2010). "Kenya 737 crash: Poor airmanship led to disorientation". [[Flightglobal]].
28. (11 May 2007). "Mourners gather to honour staff killed in plane crash". [[Pravda]].
29. Kamisnki-Morrow, David. (27 June 2007). "No evidence of mechanical failure on crashed Kenya Airways Boeing 737". Flighgtglobal.
30. (7 May 2007). "No survivors from Kenya plane: Cameroon". [[Brisbane Times]].
31. (5 May 2007). "NTSB sending team to assist in the investigation of a 737 crash in Cameroon". [[National Transportation Safety Board]].
32. (10 May 2007). "Official: Cameroon crash probe turns to pilot". [[USA Today]].
33. (9 May 2007). "Other News – 05/08/2007". [[Air Transport World]].
34. McCrummen, Stephanie. (6 May 2007). "Passenger Jet Disappears Over Cameroon". The Washington Post.
35. (12 May 2007). "Reconstructing the last moments of Kenya Airways Flight 507". [[The Star (Malaysia).
36. (8 May 2007). "Recovery operation beginning outside Douala for lost KQ 737". [[Air Transport World]].
37. (9 May 2007). "Rescuers recover human remains at Cameroon crash site". [[Taipei Times]].
38. Jotischky, Tim. (18 March 2012). "The tragedy of Flight KQ507". [[The Daily Telegraph]].