Pilot error blamed for deadly 2007 crash

NAIROBI - An investigative report released this week blames 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. Some of the investigation was conducted by the US National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing experts in the United States.

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; businesspeople from China, India and South Africa; Cameroonian merchants; a UN refugee worker from Togo; and Briton Anthony Mitchell, a Nairobi-based correspondent for The Associated Press.

The investigation into the crash has been a long and difficult process. The plane went down in a mangrove swamp less than four miles (6.5km) from the runway, but it took officials 40 hours to find the plane. It took officials weeks to identify remains and there was a further delay before Cameroonian authorities released them to next of kin.

The wreckage indicated the plane flew nose-first into the ground. It was found buried deep in a crater of reddish-brown muck with only tiny bits of the rear fuselage and wings left above ground.

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.

The report said that:

-- The behaviour of the flight crew demonstrated "a lack of rigour in piloting".

-- At one point the captain turned the wheel to the right and the first officer countered by turning to the left.

-- The captain didn't adhere to standard operating procedures and the plane took off without authorization from air traffic control.

The report noted that the pilot was 52 but that the first officer was only 23. Before takeoff the pilot admonished his first officer to turn on the plane's windshield wipers, and the report speculated that the first officer, already a shy person, did not speak up to tell the pilot about the flight's problems when he should have because of their relationship.

The report said that Chicago-based Boeing, the plane's manufacturer, doesn't sufficiently explain rudder trim modifications due to temperature variations during climb and descent. But it added that the amount the plane was pulling to the right should have been easily correctable by the pilot.

- AP