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Kenya Airlines Crash Quandary

Air Safety Week, Feb 7, 2005

Should All Safety Reports Be In English?

Early in 2004, after receiving inquiries from victims' families about the long-delayed report into the Jan. 30, 2000, crash of Kenya Airways A310 Flight 431 off Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, we looked into it. There was a French version of the Jan. 25, 2002, final report on the BEA (Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses, the French accident investigation bureau) Web site. Many months later, in August 2004, a (mostly) English version was made available. As mentioned in this publication on Jan. 24, in a reference to the CL-600 F-GRJS accident at Brest, France, normally the BEA does not provide accident reports in English, despite English being the international language of aviation. The Canadian Transportation Safety Bureau (TSB) does not seem to have a problem providing reports simultaneously in both English and French. An accident report that isn't easily accessible, read and discussed is a lesson unlearned. We referred our correspondents to that 26-megabyte report and had planned an analysis of it --but other events intervened and took up available space. We'd also thought we would have needed a translator -- until we did a little more digging.

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On Jan. 30, we became aware that a major Kenyan newspaper (The Nation, Nairobi) had on that day published a banner headline, "Five Years on, Cause of Mishap Unknown." The article quoted the Kenyan Transport Minister, John Michuki, who was cited as saying that "the report would be released soon, when the whole composite picture will be made public." The man citing the Transport Minister was none other than Kenya's Chief Inspector of Aircraft Accidents, Peter Wakahia. He indicated that "the report had been handed over to the Cote d'Ivoire authorities" in December 2003, and that "the report was in the public domain." When asked why the report wasn't accessible, he said that was "because the report was only in French."

Just to recap: we have a baffling five-year-old crash of an A310 of Kenya's premier airline with heavy loss of life (169 killed; 10 survived); the report is released in French but after more than a year, on the five-year anniversary, one of Kenya's top newspapers is bemoaning that the cause remains unknown and that the report isn't available in English. Yet after some digging, we have discovered it is (and is accessible at www.bea-fr.org/docspa/2000/5y-n000130a/pdf/5y-n000130a.pdf). On top of that, the Chief Inspector of Accidents and the Transport Minister are similarly befuddled, even though admitting that French and Kenyan experts were party to the investigation. In a response in the Kenyan Parliament at the time of the crash, the Transport Minister had stated that "the plane failed to generate enough power to either gain height or keep afloat (sic)." Victims' family groups are reported as saying that because of the long delay, they wouldn't trust the report.

The Nation article cites airline experts as saying "that in order to escape liability, Kenya Airways (and presumably Airbus) needed to prove that the accident resulted from factors wholly unrelated to its crew's action or the aircraft's performance." But perhaps the fog is now lifting. The article further cites: "Most of the victims families have been compensated by Kenya Airways. Those cases were settled out of court." Despite both recorders being recovered, the flight data recorder (FDR) proved not to have any data on it. That did not stop the report from fairly conclusively reaching a credible bottom line.

It's worth noting that the Dec. 11, 1998, crash of a Thai Airways A310 (Flight 261) at Surat Thani, Thailand, cannot be found among the investigation reports on the BEA Web site, more than six years later. Neither is the A310 Hapag-Lloyd accident to D-AHLB in Vienna (Flight 3378). Reliable access to reports in the language of aviation continues to be a haphazard affair. As the Kenya Airlines report itself says, "The sole objective is to draw lessons from this occurrence that may help to prevent future accidents or incidents."

At 33 seconds after takeoff, the aircraft crashed into the sea, killing 169 of the 179 on board. The captain was PNF (Pilot not Flying). He decided upon a reduced power takeoff by announcing, "Flex 60." From the cockpit voice recorder's (CVR) data and the wreckage it was confirmed that the flaps, slats and trims were correctly configured. After the PF announced: "Positive rate of climb, gear up," the stall warning sounded. Ten seconds later the auto call-out (AC) announced "300 feet." Seven seconds later, the PF queried: "What's happening?" And two seconds later the AC announced the levels of a descent (200 ft., 100 ft., 50 ft., 30 ft., 20 ft., 10 ft.). After the 200 ft. call-out, the PF ordered the aural alarm be cut. Two seconds later, between the 100 ft. and 50 ft. call-outs, the ground proximity warning systems (GPWS) gave an inaudible ground proximity warning ("Whoop"). An aural Master warning sounded and fractionally after the 10 ft. call, just prior to impact, the Captain ordered "Go up."

Government Industry

Kenya Airlines Crash Quandary

Air Safety Week, Feb 7, 2005

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