West Caribbean Airways aircraft crash kills all 160 on board

Airline Industry Information, August 17, 2005

AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION-(C)1997-2005 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

All the 160 people aboard the McDonnell Douglas MD-82 operated by West Caribbean Airways which crashed in Venezuela on Tuesday (16 August) were killed in the crash.

The aircraft was carrying 152 tourists returning home to Martinique from a week in Panama, including a 21-month-old infant and four children, as well as eight Colombian crew members.

The aircraft, built in 1984, crashed in Zulia, a remote, north-western part of Venezuela. Investigators have been trying to determine what caused the engine failure that made the aircraft crash. Reuters reported that Venezuelan interior minister Jesse Chacon said the aircraft had changed routes to attempt a landing in the city of Maracaibo, but instead lost altitude and crashed in the Sierra de Perija region.

The Colombian aircraft was reportedly on its way from Panama to Martinique. According to Francisco Paz, the president of Venezuela's National Aviation Institute, the pilots had been in touch to report engine problems and air traffic control lost contact shortly after that. Residents of the area where the aircraft went down reported hearing an explosion.

The flight data recorder has been recovered, but the cockpit voice recorder has still not been found.

According to the Aviation Safety Network, a non-profit group maintaining a database of air disasters, the accident was the deadliest in the country's history.

The airline reportedly has a history of mechanical and financial problems, and the crashed aircraft dropped its tail cone during a flight early last month. Airline officials have however insisted that the airline does not cut corners when it comes to safety, The Associated Press reported. According to West Caribbean Airways, the MD-82 passed all its safety inspections on the night of 15 August in Colombia, before departing for Panama.

West Caribbean Airways has been fined USD45,000 for violations such as pilots and other crew members working too many hours, lack of training for flight crews and failing to log required flight data, according to Martin Gonsalez, a spokesman for the Colombian civil aviation authority. This was also the airline's second crash this year - in March, one of its aircraft crashed during take-off from Old Providence, a Caribbean island owned by Colombia. A total of eight people were killed and the remaining six were injured.

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