On May 4, 2007,
a Kenya Airways jet with 114 people aboard crashed
in a dense forest in the West African nation of
Cameroon. Airline officials said they lost contact
with the Boeing 737-800, bound for the Kenyan capital,
Nairobi, 11 minutes after its midnight takeoff
from Douala, Cameroon. Kenya Airways Flight 507,
which originated in Ivory Coast, was carrying 105
passengers from 23 countries, including one American,
and nine crew members.
When the plane went down,
a search was initially mounted about 150 miles
away from its takeoff point of Douala, along its
eastward track towards Nairobi Kenya. This search
locale was predicated on an erroneously plotted
brief Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) signal.
Flight 507's ELT gave one brief transmission burst
and then ceased, presumably due to water damage
during and after the crash. It wasn't until some
40-plus hours later that the search was redirected
well back towards Douala. The plane's impact crater
was finally found in swampland just over 3 miles
from the runway.
Families whose
loved ones died or were injured in an
airplane accident are welcome to contact
a lawyer at Lieff Global to
learn more about their legal rights.
We welcome the opportunity to answer
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The precise location of the crash site
was less than three runway lengths from the end of the runway.
Local fishermen eventually led airport workers to the downed
plane. There were no survivors among the 105 passengers and
crew. The aircraft had taken off an hour late due to a drenching
thunderstorm. Whatever pressure the crew had been put under
to eventually taken off into the torrential rain may come out
in the investigation.
Douala airport has no Air Traffic Control
or weather radar. Weather avoidance would have been solely
dependent upon the crew's interpretation of their onboard weather
radar just before rolling and just after becoming airborne.
Contrary to newspaper reports, the pilots made no routine or
emergency transmissions after acknowledging their takeoff clearance.
The plane's "black box" flight data recorder was
recovered on May 8 and its data will be fully analyzed.
Initial conjecture has centered on several
possible causes: the 737's two engines flaming out due to the
torrential downpour, a single engine failure with the crew
mistakenly closing down the good engine, or other human error.
The crash is the first for Kenya Airways in seven years; its
last crash, also in Western Africa, claimed 169 lives in January
2000.
The Legal Rights of Families Whose Loved
Ones Die in Airplane Disasters
We appreciate that this is a time of
deep pain and grieving for the spouses, children and families
of the passengers and crew who died in the Kenya Airways crash.
As time passes, you may have questions
concerning how and why the crash occurred, your legal rights,
compensation that is available to you, and the duties and legal
responsibility of the airplane operator and manufacturer. For
answers to frequently asked questions concerning aviation accidents, please
click here.
Contact an Attorney at Lieff Global
Passengers who were injured and families
whose loved ones died in this crash are welcome to contact
Lieff Global to learn more about their legal rights without
any charge or obligation. Please send
us an e-mail message. Alternatively, you may telephone
us at 415 788-8000.
About Lieff Global
Lieff Global, LLP, is an AV-rated law
firm with offices in San Francisco and New York, and affiliate
offices worldwide. Our representation has included both Americans
and people residing in Europe and Asia in aviation lawsuits
filed worldwide.
Lieff Global is uniquely positioned
to answer your questions and represent your interests. Our
attorneys have over forty years of experience litigating airplane
crash cases worldwide. We have relationships with the foremost
experts in the fields of aviation safety and disaster analysis.
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