Signal picked up from missing plane

May 05 2007 at 05:19PM

Nairobi - Kenya Airways said on Saturday Cameroonian authorities had picked up an automatic distress signal from the area where a passenger jet carrying 114 people to Nairobi went missing.

Kenya Airways Group Managing Director Titus Naikuni declined to confirm a Cameroon state radio report that the Boeing 737-800 plane had crashed in southern Cameroon.

But he told a news conference an electronic signal had been picked up from the area, indicating it could have come from the plane's black box. "The distress call came from a machine, not a pilot," he said.

Kenyan government spokesperson Alfred Mutua told the news conference the source of the signal was about 35 nautical miles (65 km) southwest of Douala, where the plane took off.

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"They have a helicopter in the area where the signal was coming from," he said, adding there had been no report yet from the search mission.

Experts from Kenya Airways and Kenyan government officials including Transport Minister Chirau Ali Mwakwere were due to fly to Cameroon later on Saturday, Mutua said.

Naikuni said the plane had 105 passengers and nine crew, one less passenger than the airline had earlier said.

There were 34 Cameroonians, 15 Indians, five Britons and one American among the 105 passengers, the bulk of whom were from African countries.

The plane is six months old and no service history problems, Naikuni said. Kenyan media reported that there was rain in Douala when the plane took off.
- Reuters

www.int.iol.co.za

Africa not prepared for big search and rescue operations

Story by PETER MWAURA
Publication Date: 2007/05/12

The delayed, protracted and initially confused and off-course search for the Kenya Airways plane that crashed in Cameroon last Saturday is a cruel reminder that African countries lack the minimum level of expertise required to respond professionally and effectively in the event of an aviation disaster.

Flight KQ 507 crashed only about five kilometres from Douala International Airport, yet it took the Cameroonian authorities almost two days to locate the downed plane. The plane was located on Sunday but midway through the week they were still recovering bodies, which had already decomposed.

Admittedly the circumstances of the crash were extraordinary – bad weather, technical communication problems and critical time frame. The plane crashed shortly after midnight -- at the weekend when most civil authorities in Africa may not be up to speed -- in a forested, swampy area that was difficult to access.

Still, the Cameroonian authorities did not mobilise a search and rescue mission until around 11 on Saturday morning. That was unbelievably lethargic by any standards.

CAMEROON IS BOUND BY international law to provide prompt and effective assistance to any aircraft in distress in its territory.

Under the Chicago Convention, state parties are required to provide maximum efficiency in such search and rescue operations and to train their search and rescue personnel regularly.

When the African Civil Aviation Commission and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) recently carried out an evaluation of the search and rescue preparedness of 18 African countries, including Cameroon and Kenya, they found that most lacked efficient search and rescue systems.

Some did not even have rescue coordinating centres or equipment to deal with an eventual air disaster. One or two had well-organised and effective search and rescue systems, but the majority were poorly prepared.

The evaluations, carried out in 2002, found out that the most common shortcomings included lack of training, inadequate staff, quality control and poor funding.

But the most damning finding was that the countries rarely carried out search and rescue exercises. Many of them lacked the political will to do so. Others lacked the necessary technical expertise, funds, equipment and human resources to organise exercises in good conditions.

It is well known that search and rescue exercises are extremely useful as they test the functionality of the entire system, the efficiency of all players who include air traffic control services, civil aviation, airlines, ambulances and medics, security forces, and so on.

ICAO recommends that a full-scale exercise should be held at least every two years.

According to ICAO, African search and rescue systems are idle most of the time because of the low level of air traffic in most countries, despite a proportionally high-accident rate in Africa.

In such conditions, even well-trained search and rescue units may not be operational when a major catastrophe such as the crash of KQ 507 happens.

Air traffic in Africa is about two per cent of world traffic. All the same, air traffic in Africa is increasing steadily and accident rates are likely to increase. It is in Africa, more than in any other part of the world, where the training of search and rescue personnel is crucial. And it is therefore vital for African countries to hold regular search and rescue exercises to ensure that they can respond to an accident professionally and effectively, says ICAO.

The downing of the Kenyan airliner with 114 people on board in the dead of night in the Cameroonian jungle sorely underscores the importance of search and rescue preparedness.

Usually there is a direct link between the level of preparedness and the number of survivors rescued and equipment salvaged. Most survivors would be rescued in the event of an accident in a country that is well prepared.

If the Cameroonian search and rescue mission for the Kenya Airways plane had not be so confused and dragged out it would have been possible to recover bodies, if not survivors, before decomposition.

Not much has changed since the evaluation carried out four years ago on the 18 African countries, which found that many did not even have a point of contact for a search and rescue operation.

THERE WAS NO AUTHORITY IN charge of search and rescue services coordination, no international aerodromes equipped with appropriate emergency plans, no rescue coordination centre equipped with adequate communication means with position fixing and radio direction-finding stations. There was also no equipment for the removal of wreckage, and no sufficient and properly trained search and rescue personnel.

Hopefully, the international and Africa-wide interest in the shocking news of the drawn-out search for the Kenya Airways plane will inspire greater interest in aviation disaster preparedness in the continent.

Kenya: Stake Holders Fight Off Blame for Kenya Airways Crash

The Post (Buea)
11 May 2007
Posted to the web 11 May 2007
Joe Dinga Pefok

Authorities of Douala International Airport [Cameroon Civil Aviation], as well as those of the Kenya Airways and the Boeing company, have in different ways been engaging in a propaganda campaign ostensibly to exonerate their companies from any culpability.

They seem to fear that any if the blame for the crash of the Kenya Airways crash ever falls on them, it would certainly damage their various images and interests.

Certain experts and most of the Douala population have been attributing the cause of the crash to either poor weather, technical fault, human error, sabotage or the introduction of a foreign element into the engine of the plane during the stopover at the Douala International Airport.

In the US, the spokesman of the Boeing company, Jim Proulx, has been flooding the Internet with statements to the effect that the crash of the six-month-old Boeing 737-800, could not have been due to a technical fault. Observers say Proulx certainly knows the damages that will be caused to both the company's image and sales were it to be established that the plane crashed because of a technical fault traced back to the manufacturer.

As for the Kenya Airways authorities, all the press statements from their headquarters in Nairobi tend to insinuate that pilot error could not have been responsible for the crash.

Rather they insist on bad weather, insinuating negligence of the control tower at Douala Airport.

The Kenyans also talk of the possible introduction of a foreign element like a big bird into the engine while the plane was at the Douala Airport. As for the authorities of the Cameroon Civil Aviation, they are also fretting, knowing that the Douala International Airport would likely be considered as unsafe by the international community, if the cause of the accident is linked to negligent airport staff.

Pilot Warned Against Take-off

Though appalling weather seems to be the most speculated cause of the crash, the local French language daily newspaper, La Nouvelle Expression, (No. 1975 of May 8), quoted what it claimed were exclusive sources, having disclosed to the paper that some members of the ground technical team at the Douala Airport mounted the cockpit of the Kenya Airways aircraft that night, and advised the pilot against taking off at that time.

According to the paper, the technicians had warned the pilot that the radar had indicated a very turbulent spot in the flight path not far away from the Airport.The captain allegedly insisted on leaving, by convincing the Cameroonian technicians that he would try to manoeuvre his way round the turbulent area, and so took off.

Nonetheless, experts have been insisting that it is only the information in the black box that will establish the exact cause or causes of the crash.Speaking at a press briefing in Douala on May 8, the Chief Executive Officer, CEO, of Kenya Airways, Titus Nakuini, stressed that only the black box will be able to give a clear picture as to what caused the plane to crash.

The Black Box

The black box usually contains the recording of the last 30 minutes of discussions in the cockpit of a plane while it is on a flight and the last discussion between the cockpit and the control tower.It also contains the flight data of a plane, and so it will be possible to know at what altitude the Kenya Airways aircraft was, when it ran into trouble.

Meanwhile, the control tower is supposed to be in contact with a plane upon take-off for five minutes, before the control tower at the destination of the plane takes over. The Kenya Airways plane crashed less than five minutes upon take-off from the Douala International Airport, and so it was the tower at that airport that was still responsible for contacts.

Since the black box seems the most dependable source of credible information for any technical investigation into the crash of a plane, the insurance company too, awaits its verdict. Thus the CEO of Kenya Airways noted that though their plane was fully insured, there will be no talk about compensation to the families of victims of the crash for now, until the technical investigation into the cause of the crash is over. This news did not go down well with family members of the crash victims who were around.

Scuffle Over Black box

A disagreement between some members of the technical team of Kenya Airways and some senior Cameroonian gendarmerie officers on the procedure of handling and sealing the black box that was found on May 7 in the mangroves of Mbanga Pongo sparked off a scuffle.

A member of the technical team of Kenya Airways, Peter O. Marereh (Production Engineer, Avionics), discovered the black box at about 4.35 pm.The Post, which was one of the few press organs that was still at the crash site, rushed after Marereh and one of his colleagues on the 3-kilometre journey in the swamps to the camp which was set up at the entrance of the forest; the technical team of the Kenya Airways presented the black box to Littoral Governor, Gounokou Haounaye.

But no sooner had the Governor left, than a group of gendarmerie officers declared that the Cameroonian security was now in charge, and that they [Kenyan authorities] had better go their way.

A heated argument erupted over the control of the black box as members of the technical team of Kenya Airways insisted that the international regulation required that both parties jointly take control of the black box, until it is sealed.

But the gendarmerie officers who continuously spoke in French, forcing the Kenyans who were not understanding to depend on some rough translation by sympathisers, would not listen to the Kenyans whom they accused of insinuating that the Cameroonian security was not to be trusted.

Then the gendarmes ordered that the black box be put in one of their vehicles, which was rapidly done by some junior officers. But while some of the Kenyans were desperately trying to make phone calls, others hung onto the gendarmerie vehicle in which was the black box. One of then cried out to the gendarmes: "You are treating us so badly.

This is unfair!"

At this stage, the Littoral Provincial Chief of National Security, Joachim Mbida Nkili, and a senior officer of the Cameroon Air Force, Samuel Ngwesse, who had initially not wanted to get involved in the issue of the black box, finally intervened.

Mbida Nkili, who spoke to the Kenyans in English, and showed quite a lot of concern, calmed down the brawlers. As for Air Force officer, he explained to the gendarmes that the Kenyans were right. He stressed on the necessity to strictly follow the internationally prescribed procedure for joint control over the black box.

He further explained that for the final sealing of that black box, the representatives of the Boeing company and the Cameroon Civil Aviation would have to be present, and that documents would have to be signed.

A compromise was thus arrived at between the senior gendarmerie officers and members of the technical team of Kenya Airways. Not only was the black box temporally sealed on the spot, but it was also agreed that two members of the technical team of Kenya Airways, one of whom was Marereh, should also go along in the gendarmerie vehicle with the black box. And so ended the scuffle which lasted some 35 minutes.

Some of the gendarmes finally admitted that they knew nothing about the black box of a plane. Some two gendarmerie officers even recalled that when the Kenyans first appeared with the box they did not know it was the black box.

Meanwhile, The Post learned that the black box will either be sent to France or Canada for the contents to be retrieved as there is no country in Africa with equipment to analyse it.