We in Africa like blaming "the West" for our faults and inadequances.

It is clear that this was Captain error and by extension KQ error.

For starters why did they take off in the absence of clearence to do so!!

How come they quietly compensated the bereaved families.
The panicky shouts of we are crashing and the matter of the Plane tilting horribly(unless we dont believe the data to be authentic) must have been sourced from the ill fated Aircrafts devices.

When it suits us, we blame the West for conspiring against Africa. In other situations we believe the West has better and working systems as compared to what we have.

Case in point is the argument that the ICC is being used by the west to punish certain people and reward others in our political landscape.

I will hear none of that - for it is not true!

PS I am no puppet of anybody's - West or otherwise!!!!

The problem with this story is that we can identify with it. A captain who is arrogant who doesn't deal with situations as they are supposed to be dealt with.

It's easy to blame the 'WEST' as usual. And have no doubt about it the story is biased....but what isn't even our opinions here are biased to the point where we aren't diapproving the facts but the article writer's "westness".

The questions that need to be asked to prevent the next nairobi-kisumu crash on Kibera slums.

1. Did the pilot follow the right procedures?
2. Did the co-pilot?
3. Was the plane in good condition?
4. If the pilot and co-pilot didn't follow procedure, who's in charge of ensuring they follow right procedure?
5. Is this the first time this has happened at KQ?

Therein lies your answers. Forget the mzungu issues and the west and the they hate us.

If there is a problem in KQ that this article has brought up, deal with it now or expect worse.

I've just read some of the comments here so I want to ask based on the comments

1. Are KQ pilots arrogant to a fault? Do they really call clients, f***ers?
2. Is it true that some of them have a brown probox before they board those planes?
3. Is it true that a huge percentage of the pilots come from well off families who go into piloting for prestige rather than being the best the country can offer?

If any of these are true then KQ has institutional problems rather than pilot errors. So expect more of these "accidents".

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about. I've never even entered a plane.

sasa nimefanya nini?

By the way I took the advice from Mcregae and bought a bond 7 from a supermarket. It tastes better than the one from kalocal.

It makes me see things in question form.

This might be true, but that plane was 6 months old....it must have been ok even without ever having been maintained.

@Spend.thrift "I'm always edgy when the aircraft takes that right bank at JKIA especially at night." It banks and rises at the same time, no chance of ploughing into the ground....ama unaogopa iko brick wall hapo juu?

Well put !

Couldnt have put it better.

@selah,
The modern role of a flight engineer is to do ground checks at the point of destination, if an airline has station engineers at the destination then most flights go without flight engineers!!!!

Well it seems we many never really know for sure what happened to KQ507 on that fateful day.

However am a firm believer things dont go wrong, BUT they start wrong and herein lies my issues!

* Why did KQ change their destination of training pilots from a world reknowned flight center in Ethiopia to SA? was it cost based or or is SA better or were Ethipia tired of the calibre of candidates been sent by KQ?

http://www.ethiopianairl...ools/pilot/default.aspx

http://www.flightacademy.co.za/

http://www.43airschool.com/

* The who's who seem to have a say in their pilot recruitment programme.

* The over-reliance on ex-airforce personell, have they been unable to make the transition smoothly to a modern private sector environment hence inablity to adapt the rigours of modern day corporates.

There seem to be a number of underlying issues and unless these are addressed then this will indeed happen again, however am no pilot, nor do i work in KQ am just an obesrver from outside.

Check this out;

"The Cameroon Civil Aviation Authority (CCAA) released its final report of the crash on 28 April 2010.[11] The investigation found that the aircraft departed without receiving clearance from Air Traffic Control. The captain, who was the flying pilot, corrected right bank several times after take-off. After 42 seconds of flight, the captain gave a command indicating that he activated the autopilot. However the autopilot did not actually engage, nor was the command acknowledged by the copilot. The pilots did not notice that the aircraft was increasingly banking to the right from 11° when the captain indicated that he had set the autopilot to 34° when a bank angle warning sounded 40 seconds later. The captain then activated the autopilot, but his inputs on the controls lead to a further increase in the bank angle. The aircraft pitched nose-down after it reached a height of 2900 feet with 115° right bank. The two pilots used opposite and conflicting control inputs to attempt to recover the aircraft. The aircraft crashed at 287 knots at 48° down pitch and 60° right bank 1:42 after take off.[33]

The CCAA determined the probable causes of the crash to be "loss of control of the aircraft as a result of spatial disorientation... after a long slow roll, during which no instrument scanning was done, and in the absence of external visual references in a dark night. Inadequate operational control, lack of crew coordination, coupled with the non-adherence to procedures of flight monitoring, confusion in the utilization of the [autopilot], have also contributed to cause this situation"


http://en.wikipedia.org/...Kenya_Airways_Flight_507