Kenya Airways Flight 507
 | This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses, and initial news reports may be unreliable. The latest updates to this article may not reflect the most current information. (May 2007) |
| Occurrence | |
|---|---|
| Date | 5 May 2007 |
| Summary | Boeing 737-800 |
| Site | Mbanga Pongo, in the Douala III subdivision. 20 km Southeast of the airport |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 737-800 |
| Operator | Kenya Airways |
| Registration | 5Y-KYA |
| Passengers | 105 |
| Crew | 9 |
| Fatalities | 114 |
| Survivors | 0 |
Kenya Airways Flight KQ 507 was a Boeing 737 flight of Kenya Airways flying from Douala International Airport in Douala, Cameroon, to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya. The flight originated from Port Bouet Airport in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, but made a stop in Douala to pick up more passengers. It departed Douala at 0105 GMT (0005 local time) on 5 May 2007. It had been scheduled to arrive in Nairobi at 0315 GMT (0615 local time).
Kenya Airways released a passenger list indicating that the 104 passengers onboard were citizens of 26 different countries, none of Kenya. The entire 9-member crew was from Kenya.[1]
The plane broke up into small pieces and came to rest mostly submerged in a forested swamp, 20 km to the southeast of the Douala International Airport. There were no survivors.[2]
The crash
Kenya Airways lost contact with the plane soon after takeoff from Douala. The control tower received a distress signal from the aircraft before the loss of contact.[3] The lost aircraft was one of three 737-800s that Kenya Airways had recently added to its fleet, acquiring it from Singapore Aircraft Leasing Enterprise.[4] The airframe first flew on October 9, 2006[5] and was delivered from Boeing later that month.[6]
Kenya Airways has set up a crisis management center at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.
On 6 May, Cameroon's state radio interrupted broadcasts to report that wreckage of the plane had been found near Mvengue, southwest of the capital Yaounde, only to say later it could not confirm the report.[7]
Later that day Kenyan Airways officials reported that the wreckage of the aircraft had been found 20 kilometres southeast of the airport, on the aircraft's flight path, some 100 kilometres from the site mentioned in the earlier radio broadcasts. Initial reports from the crash site did not mention survivors.[8]
Further, Kenya Airways Group Managing Director Titus Naikuni said in Nairobi that local fishermen had led rescuers to the crash site.
"We are told the aircraft was covered by a canopy of trees, and that was the delay in sighting the crash site," he said.
Cameroon's Minister of State for Territorial Administration Hamidou Yaya Marafa told a news conference that day, "All I can say for now is that the wreckage of the plane has been located in the small village of Mbanga Pongo, in the Douala III subdivision. We are putting in place rescue measures."[9]
On May 7 director of Civil Protection Service of Cameroon Jean-Pierre Nana claimed that "there are no chances that there will be any survivors because almost the entire body of the plane was buried inside the swamp"[2].
Nationalities of the victims
- 37 Cameroon
- 15 India
- 9 Kenya (crew members)
- 7 South Africa
- 6 Ivory Coast; Nigeria
- 5 People's Republic of China; United Kingdom
- 3 Niger
- 2 Central African Republic; Democratic Republic of the Congo; Equatorial Guinea
- 1 Burkina Faso; Comoros; Republic of the Congo; Egypt; Ghana; Mali; Mauritania; Mauritius; Senegal; South Korea; Sweden; Switzerland; Tanzania; Togo; United States;
Source: Kenya Airways[1]
References
- ^ a b "Full list of Passengers of Flight KQ 507". Kenya Airways. 2007-05-06. Retrieved 2007-05-06.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b "No chance of survivors from Kenya plane - Cameroon". Reuters AlertNet. 2007-05-07. Retrieved 2007-05-07.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Plane Carrying 115 People Crashes". Sky News. Retrieved 2007-05-05.
{{cite news}}: Text "date=2007-05-05" ignored (help) - ^ "Plane was one of KQ's newly acquired crafts". Sunday Times. 2007-05-05. Retrieved 2007-05-05.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^
"planespotters.net". planespotters.net. 06/05/2007. Retrieved 2007-05-06.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^
"airliners.net". airliners.net. 06/05/2007. Retrieved 2007-05-06.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Reuters - Searchers comb dense Cameroon forest for Kenya plane". Reuters. May 6, 2007.
- ^ "UPDATE 5-Cameroon finds Kenya plane, no word of survivors". Reuters. May 6, 2007.
- ^ "UPDATE 6-Cameroon finds Kenyan Airways plane". Brisbane Times. May 7, 2007.