Pilot error blamed for 2007 crash that killed 114

Nairobi, Kenya: An investigative report released Wednesday blamed pilot error for the 2007 crash of Kenya Airways flight in Cameroon that killed all 114 people on board.
The pilot of the Kenya Airways flight didn't notice the plane was banking right and when he did he turned farther right, triggering a downward spiral, the report found.
The crash of the Boeing 737-800 on May 5, 2007, occurred during a thunderstorm less than two minutes after take-off, but the report said weather did not likely cause the crash. Instead it blamed "spatial disorientation" by the pilot.
The report was posted early Wednesday on the website of the Cameroon Civil Aviation Authority.
The report said the pilot didn't adhere to standard operating procedures, had poor situational awareness and "reacted inappropriately in the face of an abnormal situation."
No instrument scanning was done by the crew during the initial roll, and because it was night, the pilot had no visual references to correct the situation, the report said.
About 90 seconds into the flight, after the pilot notices the rightward drift, he says "we are crashing." Seconds later a young first officer mistakenly tells the pilot to turn right, before correcting himself and saying "left, left, left."
The plane crashed nine seconds later, a minute and 42 seconds into the flight.
The 114 people on board came from 26 nations, including an American AIDS expert who worked at Harvard University; business people from China, India and South Africa; Cameroonian merchants; a U.N. refugee worker from Togo; and Briton Anthony Mitchell, a Nairobi-based correspondent for The Associated Press.
Investigators at the time of the crash said the dive indicated that a violent gust of wind may have flipped the airliner over. But the investigation found that the pilot turned the plane to the right and into the fatal dive.
27/04/10 Associated Press/Fox News

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Categories: Foreign Apr 2010, Safety Apr 2010