Posted on 05/07/2007 12:57:00 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
Investigators focused Monday on the possibility a Kenya Airways jetliner lost power in both engines during a storm just after takeoff and was trying to glide back to the airport when it plunged into a mangrove swamp 12 miles from the runway.
All 114 people on board were killed in the crash, officials in this West African nation said after picking their way along a muddy path to the site strewn with pieces of metal, bodies and shoes.
After being delayed an hour by storms, the Kenya-bound Boeing 737-800 sent a distress signal shortly after takeoff from Douala early Saturday, then lost contact 11 to 13 minutes later. It took searchers more than 40 hours to find the wreckage, most of it submerged in murky orange-brown water and concealed by a canopy of trees.
"The plane fell head first. Its nose was buried in the mangrove swamp," said Thomas Sobakam, chief of meteorology for the Douala airport. He said the jet disintegrated on impact.
There’s more at the source link...forgot to hit the excerpt button.
“lost power in both engines...”
Sounds like they ran out of fuel to me. Either that or the pilot was Islamic.
This happened after takeoff, not during landing approach. Really, what are the chances of an airliner taking off with so little fuel it doesn’t even make it 100 miles from the airport?
Man, Kenya airways has some pretty jets.
That is pretty curious, but what are the chances of both engines suffering engine failure at the same time?
This happened in 1977 to a Southern Airway flight from Huntsville, AL to Atlanta. Yes - too much water can flame out jet engines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Flight_242
This happened in 1977 to a Southern Airway flight from Huntsville, AL to Atlanta. Yes - too much water can flame out jet engines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Flight_242
Wrong kind of fuel?
Av gas instead of jet fuel?
Maybe it depends on how you define engine failure. Personally, it would not consider that engine failure.
Infinitesimal. I only remember ever hearing of one double engine failure due to weather in the past 30+ years--that was a Southern DC-9 that flew into a thunderstorm and lost both engines due to massive rain and hail ingestion. They ended up crashing on a highway near Atlanta.
The most likely things I could think of that would cause something like that would be losing both engines to bird strikes if they flew into a flock of birds (that's happened before), or fuel contamination. The chances of two modern jet engines suffering serious mechanical failures at the same time, assuming proper maintenance, are vanishingly small.
}:-)4
To me, “engine failure” means that the engine manufacturer is to blame. I don’t see how you can blame the engine manufacturer for a crash caused by a flock of birds or a thunderstorm.
“When a fail safe system fails, it fails by failing to fail safely.” John Gall in Systemantics.
Rain in the tropics can be incredible. The drops are frequently huge, and they can come down in torrents.
It is unlike anything I have ever seen in the temperate zones.
what are the chances of both engines suffering engine failure at the same time?
I'll be waiting for the flight recorder analysis, m'self. Per the story they found one of them so far...
From what I’ve heard, it’s not all that hard to inadvertantly cause this scenario with the 737. It might have actually been pilot error.
My guess is flameout.
This happened in 1977 to a Southern Airway flight from Huntsville, AL to Atlanta. Yes - too much water can flame out jet engines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Flight_242
These decisions, each superficially reasonable, then led to the following sequence of events:
a) Since the pilot did NOT see the severity of the storms in front of him, he went into a thundercell with lots of water. The first engine ingested water and flamed out about 100 miles from the Atlanta airport.
b) The flight engineer attempted to restart the engine from the power of the remaining engine when it too went out. (the flight recorder records his [expletive deleted] when he discovered that the second engine flamed out before the first engine had completed restart). The aircraft then had all of the aerodynamic properties of a rock.
c) The pilot declared an emergency, but since the air traffic controller was new, and his radar did not go out to an airforce base which could have served as a landing strip, he did not give him the lifesaving advice — by the time the supervisor arrived and informed the pilot of the runway, it was too late — the pilot was on his own.
d) It was actually to the pilot’s credit that, when he broke out of the clouds on the way down, he spied a long straight road down the middle of a valley, and he was able to land on it (otherwise, no one would have survived). What he did not see was the convenience store with gas pumps about half way down the road; when the aircraft wing hit it, a fire erupted.
Given the circumstances, it was a miracle that most of the passengers survived. Another casualty was Southern Airways itself.
I would guess that the African aircraft did not carry batteries which would allow a restart as well.
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