Crashed Kenya Airways plane found

Yaounde: A Kenya Airways plane that went missing yesterday with 114 passengers and crew on board was found overnight in swamps south-east of Cameroon's Douala airport.
State radio quoted a working group created by Cameroon's prime minister to handle the crisis as saying the craft had been found in mangrove swamps near Dizangue, south-east of Douala airport. The Boeing 737-800 aircraft, which was carrying 114 people from more than 20

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Victims from 27 nations
The Kenya Airways flight KQ 507, which
was bound for Nairobi, went missing
shortly after it took off from Douala in
Cameroon. Nationalities of the passengers
who were on board KQ 507:
CAMEROON 37, INDIA 15, SOUTH
AFRICA 7, IVORY COAST 6, NIGERIA 6,
CHINA 5, BRITAIN 5, NIGER 3, CAR 2,
EQUITORIAL GUINEA 2, DRC 2
MAURITANIA 1, KOREAN 1,SWISS 1,
MALI 1, TOGO 1, SWEDEN 1, GHANA 1,
OMOROS 1, MAURITIUS 1, SENEGAL 1,
CONGO 1, EGYPT 1, TANZANIA 1, US 1,
BURKINA FASO 1, KENYA ( CREW) 9.
Total 114.
06/05/07 The Standard, Kenya
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countries, went missing yesterday shortly after taking off from Douala for Nairobi in torrential rain.
The radio did not mention casualties or survivors. An aviation official declined to give any details, but confirmed there was a ground team at the site and a search party was trying to reach the area by helicopter.Cameroon's territorial administration ministry called a news conference at short notice and Kenyan government officials in Nairobi called journalists back to an unscheduled news conference there too.Kenya Airways Group Managing Director Titus Naikuni told a Nairobi news conference today an air and ground search had been widened from southern Cameroon to swampland about 40km from Douala where fishermen reported a loud noise the night of the crash.
06/05/07 Daily Telegraph, Australia

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Debris of Kenya Airways aircraft still being sought

The debris of the Kenya Airways aircraft believed to have crashed with 114 passengers, among them nine Kenyans, is still being sought.
Though there was no word on the cause of the crash, the Douala International Airport control tower received a distress signal from the plane as it roared to the skies. Villages around the area the search was being concentrated also reported hearing an explosion.
The search operation 100km South of Younde, Cameroon, where the plane crashed five minutes into the air, went on even as optimism on the fate of those on board faded.
"We could not locate any wreckage at NietÈ where first information suggested the crash may have occurred," a local government official in southern Cameroon, told Reuters.
He said the search had shifted to another area southwest of the capital – between the towns of Lolodorf and Ebolowa – where inhabitants said they had heard an explosion.
President Kibaki last evening said the Government shared in the anxieties of the families and friends of the missing persons.
He assured the nation the Government had put in motion a mechanism to help establish the status of the plane.
06/05/07 The Standard, Kenya

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Indians feared dead in Kenyan plane crash

Nairobi: Kenya Airways confirmed that the Boeing 737-800 aircraft was missing. "We do not know what happened to the aircraft," airline chief Titus Naikuni said. "We have not yet found the plane."
There were indications however that the aircraft may have gone down in thick rainforest in the southwest of the country. Residents in the Lolodorf region reported hearing a loud explosion, Cameroon radio said.
Following is the list of 15 Indians on board the Kenyan Airways airliner feared to have crashed in the Cameroon Saturday, according to a list of the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs:
Girishyan Nalakathu, Madhusudanan, Poojitha Madhusudanan, Madhu Madhusudanan, Chandan Lovel Chapol, Mr. Sha, Ruby Marie, Prakash Sundaram, Gowraman, Negle Kevin Joseph, Sherly Negle, George Joseph Kochery, Maria Joseph, Gracy Manuel.
A spokesperson for the airline said that takeoff from the Cameroonian city of Douala had been delayed by an hour due to heavy rains.
The airline also revised downwards the number of passengers on board, from 106 to 105. The plane also carried at least seven Europeans, including five Britons, a Swiss and a Swede, the airline said.
The aircraft originally took off from the Ivory Coast city of Abidjan and made an interim stop at Douala before taking off again shortly after midnight on its way to Nairobi. It was due to land early Saturday.
An emergency signal was received from the aircraft shortly after takeoff, Naikuni said. The signal was an automatically generated broadcast and had not been transmitted by the pilot.
05/05/07 DPA/IANS/Mangalorean.com

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Missing Kenyan plane still untraced

Nairobi: An air search in Cameroon has so far failed to locate the whereabouts of a Kenya Airways plane which is thought to have crashed in the south of the country with 114 people on board.
The Kenya airways Boeing 737-800, on its way from Cameroon had crashed in a densely forest area just off the coast.
The flight, which originated in Ivory Coast, was reported missing on Saturday after it failed to arrive in Kenya. It was the announcement relatives gathered at Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport had been dreading.
Twenty-three nationalities were among the 115 passengers on board, 15 of them are Indian.
Three persons from Kanpur are reportedly on board the flight. NDTV spoke to Shailesh Shukla whose sister Poornima and brother-in-law Anil Shukla were reportedly on the flight.
A distress signal it seems, originating from the plane's black box, is the only thing rescuers have to go on.
''The latest information that a distress signal was picked up on the west coast of Africa and a search and rescue mission initiated by Cameroonian authorities was initiated at 1105 (0805GMT) this morning, that is Nairobi time. So far no report has been received from this mission,'' said Titus Naikuni, MD, Kenya Airways.
Search operations that were suspended during the night due to poor weather, have now resumed.
All Kenya Airways can say is that its plane from the Cameroon has gone missing and all its 114 passengers are to be traced.
At the airport in Nairobi, it is an anxious wait but few seem hopeful of survivors, especially after the grim assessment on the ground.
We have a helicopter that is there right now, and one fixed wing aircraft. So far we have not spotted, or they have not spotted, the aircraft as yet. The dense Equatorial forest, the heavy rainfall, is not assisting in the search,'' said Titus Naikuni, CEO, Kenya Airways.
There were people of 23 nationalities on board so the Kenya Transport Minister is leading a team of Kenya Airways and government officials to Douala, the plane's last stop.
That's where Flight KQ 507 last communicated with control towers.
The Boeing 737-800 was said to be just six months old and part of a new fleet bought by the Kenya's national carrier.
''You know it is a sad thing, it is very sad remembering that we lost a number of people in 2002, and you know it was the same route,'' said Janet Mwema, mother of crewmember on flight.
And that's the mystery. Kenya Airways has always had a good track record. The last crash was seven years ago when a plane crashed off the Ivory Coast killing 169 people.
06/05/07 NDTV.com

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Experts leave for Cameroon

A Government delegation led by Transport minister, Mr Chirau Ali Mwakwere, will leave for Doula Cameroon later today to assess the plane tragedy and status of the missing passengers.
Kenya Airways managing director, Mr Titus Naikuni, speaking during a press conference at Panari Hotel, said the team which includes crash investigators from Kenya Civil Aviation Authority, will assist the Cameroon Government in the rescue.
The team of experts will be led by Peter Wakaiya (chief accident investigator Ministry of Transport), Brigadier Jackson Waweru (Deputy Airfor Commander), Nicholas Kamwende (Police anti-terrorism), John Patrick Ochieng (Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of air accident investigations) and Peter Munyao (Inspector accidents at the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority).
At same time, the Government and Cameroon Civil Authority approached the US government to assist in tracking the missing plane.
"We hope that with satellite communication information we will track the flight path and hopefully establish the fate of flight 507," Mwakwere said.
Naikuni added that KQ is in constant contact with the civil aviation authority in Cameroon for the latest information regarding the missing plane. "The information we have just received from Cameroon indicates that the plane went missing 35 nautical miles from Yaounde," said Naikuni.
06/05/07 The Standard, Kenya

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Super jumbo A-380 lands in New Delhi

New Delhi: The world's largest passenger aircraft A-380 touched down for the first time in India on Sunday to mark the second anniversary celebrations of Kingfisher Airlines.
This fully double decor aircraft, which landed at 10.50 a.m., has a passenger capacity of 850 seats in all economy configurations but in three classes it has the capacity to carry about 550 passengers.
Kingfisher Airlines has ordered five A-380 planes which has a list price of over 300 million dollars per aircraft. Super jumbo aircraft is powered by four Trent engine manufactured by Rolls Royce and can fly 15,000 kilometres non-stop.During its India visit, it would be taking some VIPs on a flight of fancy over Delhi and on Tuesday it will fly off to Mumbai.Airports Authority of India and advance teams of Airbus Industrie had been on the job in Delhi to prepare for various facilities including navigation of the super jumbo plane in the country which takes three Boeing 737 or Airbus 320 space.
This 80 feet tall aircraft will be fly flying off from Mumbai on May 9.
The wingspan of an A320 aircraft is 34.1 metres while A380 is 79.8 metres. The turnaround time of this world's largest plane is 90 minutes (with over 500 passengers).
06/05/07 PTI/Daily News & Analysis

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Turkish Airlines Flight 1074 finally arrives in Mumbai

Mumbai: After a 24-hour delay and a night at the terminal passengers of the Turkish Airlines Flight 1074 finally touched down in Mumbai on Saturday night.
The flight, which left from Istanbul at 9:45 pm (IST), was forced to land in Tehran after only two and a half hours following technical problems.
Spares had to be sought from Istanbul and it took about 8 hours for the necessary repairs to be carried out.
But relatives in Mumbai were left in the dark anxiously awaiting the arrival of their near and dear ones.
The 123 passengers, who were mostly Indian, spent a harrowing night at the airport on Friday because they were not allowed to go into the city. They were relieved when the Airbus 300 finally took off this morning.
But their relief gave way to shock when the plane returned to Tehran after being in the air for only 40 minutes.
The plane was forced to turn around for the second time within ten hours due to another technical snag that took place after take off.
Meanwhile in Mumbai, passengers who were to take the flight back to Istanbul were also forced to suffer delays.
After waiting for 12 hours at the International Airport, they were finally granted hotel accommodation.
06/05/07 Shloka Nath/NDTV.com

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Israeli spends night in Iran after emergency landing

An Israeli citizen ended up spending 24 hours in Tehran yesterday after his flight from Istanbul to India had to make an emergency landing there. After finally landing in Mumbai, the passenger, identified only as "Beni," said he had been treated exceptionally well and had even received a small souvenir from the Islamic Republic.
The Turkish Airlines Airbus aircraft was diverted from its planned flight path on Friday night after the pilot detected an electrical problem. The flight took off again on Saturday morning with its 123 passengers abroad. However, after forty minutes in flight, the airplane was forced to turn around again, this time with a hydraulic problem.
The flight finally took off shortly after 7 P.M. Tehran time yesterday evening.
In a conversation with Haaretz after his safe arrival in India, Beni said the Iranians were aware that he was Israeli, and that he was treated well. "They were very nice. I tried to say I was British, but they knew I was Israeli and they gave me a bodyguard for my safety," he said. "They even gave me a small farewell gift: a wooden box with traditional carvings.
05/05/07 Barak Ravid/Ha'aretz, Israel

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Got a spare plane out of Iran

Vivek Nair, The Telegraph’s special correspondent in Mumbai, was among several Indian passengers on a Turkish Airlines plane that made an emergency landing at Tehran, not once but twice in a day. His account, despatched from Mehrabad International Airport at Tehran, follows.
Turkish Airlines Flight 1074 — carrying over 120 passengers, among them many Indians like me — had taken off from Istanbul on Friday at 7.10 pm local time (9.40 pm IST). The plane was on its way to Mumbai, where it was scheduled to land at 3.45 am on Saturday.
After a few uneventful hours in the air, the plane began descending following, we learnt later, a technical snag. It was then that I realised we were about to land in Tehran, a stopover that was not on my itinerary when I set out from Mumbai to Istanbul to cover an automobile launch.
I was not immune to the alarm that sets in when a plane makes an unscheduled landing but there was also a hint of excitement at the prospect of touching down in a city that is at the centre of an international nuclear stand-off.
But once we landed at the Mehrabad airport in Tehran at 10.30 pm local time (12.30 am IST ), the excitement evaporated. Turkish Airlines officials told us we have to spend indefinite hours at the lounge since we didn’t have the papers to step out and check in at a hotel.
Thus began an ordeal that dragged on for over 17 hours, which some of my fellow passengers described as the “most harrowing flying experience” of their lives.
We spent the night at the airport lounge, the exhausted passengers, who included children, trying to catch some sleep. I tried to kill time by exploring the airport, which falls between mountains on one side and the city on the other.
Nine hours after landing and the self-guided tour around the airport, hope sprang as we were told that the flight would take off soon.
Around 10 am local time, we were airborne again — but only for 45 minutes. Word was out then that we were turning back because of — you guessed it — a technical snag.
This time, the airline tried to be more accommodative, saying transit visas could be arranged and we could be put up in hotels.
But we had only one demand: another aircraft. We have pushed our luck far enough with a plane — an Airbus A 310-300 — made in 1987.
The Turkish officials eventually agreed to ask Istanbul to send another aircraft. The new aircraft was scheduled to reach Tehran at 4.45 pm local time.
If it does come and take off at the promised time, we should be in Mumbai by 11 pm on Saturday, clocking a delay of about 20 hours.
The plane did take off and complete the journey. Vivek Nair and the other passengers landed in Mumbai safely after 1 am on Sunday.
06/05/07 The Telegraph

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Top Tata official says no immediate plans to enter airline biz

Mumbai: After an abortive attempt to foray into the aviation sector in the mid-1990s, the Tata group has ruled out any immediate plans to enter the business.
"We have no plans at present to enter the aviation business. However, this does not mean that we won't relook at the business in the future," a top Tata group official told PTI here.
The Tata group had announced its plans for the domestic airline business in the late-1990s in collaboration with Singapore Airlines but abandoned it following failure to obtain regulatory approvals.
"The market conditions then and those prevailing now are different. While I don't rule out entering the business in the future, I can tell you that we are not looking at the business now," Tata Sons' Executive Director, R Gopalakrishnan, said.
The Tata group has a long and distinguished connection with Indian aviation with its former Chairman, the late J R D Tata's love for flying and association with Air India, being a case in point.
Similarly, Rata Tata, the present Chairman, has never hid his love of flying.
06/05/07 PTI/The Hindu

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Jet-Spice near miss over Mumbai

Mumbai: A Jet Airways and a SpiceJet aircraft narrowly missed each other in Mumbai’s skies on Friday, at an altitude of 18,000 feet. The air miss happened at around 2 pm, when the two flights—Jet Airways flight 9W-306 from Delhi and SpiceJet's SG-263 from Ahmedabad—were on their descent path towards the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.
“Our flight was holding under the control of ATC (air traffic control) Mumbai and when it was descending from 18,000 feet to 17,000 feet, there was a TCAS warning,” said Captain R L Kapoor, Director (Flight Safety), SpiceJet.
“Apart from the visual warning, there was a resolution advisory, which is an audio warning and the pilot took action accordingly,” added Captain J S Dhillon, Vice President (Operations), SpiceJet. The resolution advisory by the TCAS offers the pilot direct, vocal instructions when another aircraft is dangerously close.
Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has “instituted an inquiry and investigations are on,” according to P Shaw, Director (Air Safety), Western Region.
05/05/07 Lekha Agarwal/Mumbai Newsline

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India's pact with ASEAN in limbo

New Delhi: Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee idea of an open sky or unlimited flights to the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is getting a quiet burial.
Though current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is also in favour of the same and even called for it at the ASEAN summit in January this year but the Civil Aviation Ministry has turned down the proposal.
Foreign airlines like Singapore Airlines along with Thai and Malaysian carriers want the deal to go through badly as a proposed open sky or unlimited flights agreement gives them access to more cities and frequencies
All of them want a slice of the Indian market that is growing at 100 per cent over the past three years. It allows traffic to be fed to South Asian hubs in Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur for the onward journey to US, Europe and other countries.
But the civil aviation ministry says the deal is not equitable.
"If we look at the larger pie and involve other economic benefits like increased trade etc we should go for it otherwise it is not good. India has to save its market," Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation CEO Kapil Kaul says.
05/05/07 Karma Paljor/CNN-IBN

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Flight delay causes fracas at airport

Kolkata: There was tension at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport on Saturday evening after passengers of a Mumbai-bound Air Sahara flight got off the aircraft and started demonstrating in the high-security apron area.
They were immediately surrounded by CISF personnel and herded to a corner. Some passengers later claimed that they were manhandled by the security personnel.
Air Sahara flight 224 was to leave Kolkata at 7.55 pm. Passengers were, however, told that the flight would be delayed by an hour due to technical problems. When the 116 passengers were finally allowed to board the aircraft, they realised that the AC was not functioning.
The cabin crew were informed, but proved to be of little assistance. The passengers then trooped down onto the tarmac and raised slogans.
A high alert was immediately sounded and security personnel surrounded the passengers. This infuriated them further.
The flight was finally readied for takeoff after 10.30 pm — that too after borrowing some equipment from Air India.
Though Air Sahara has been taken over by Jet, flights are still operated by the earlier staff.
06/05/07 Times of India

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Duty-free shops face the heat

New Delhi: Airports in US, UK & Europe to confiscate goods bought from duty-free shops in India. Airports in the United States, the UK and other countries of Europe have decided to confiscate goods bought by passengers from duty-free shops in India, ostensibly as a security measure.
This threatens to put out of business the duty-free shops operating in over 15 airports in the country. With duty-free sales falling by over 40 per cent, the Indian Duty Free Association - which represents companies running shops in duty-free areas - has approached the ministry of civil aviation demanding that India take a 'quid pro quo' action to protect them against such discrimination.
Top sources said the civil aviation ministry is planning to approach the external affairs ministry to take up the matter through diplomatic channels.
The association has pointed out that the foreign countries move was mainly intended to protect the interest of their own duty-free shops, which are facing declining sales partly because of security threats at airports and also owing to cheaper prices offered at airports of developing countries such as India.
Duty-free shops clock an annual business of over Rs 500 crore and 70 per cent of their turnover comes from passengers departing from India, who find prices here much cheaper than those abroad.
06/05/07 Surajeet Das Gupta/Business Standard

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Jet Airways wins Freddie award

Mumbai: India's leading private carrier Jet Airways has won the Freddie Award in the highly coveted category of 'Programme of the Year' for Japan, Australia, Asia and Pacific regions, a company release on Saturday said.
The 19th annual presentation ceremony was held at the Crystal Gateway Marriott Hotel in Arlington, Virginia.
At this year's Freddie Awards, Jet Privilege was the only programme to be featured in the top five in all the nine categories of the Freddie awards.
Besides winning the award for 'Programme of the Year', the Jet Privilege programme secured the second position in four other categories including best customer service, best affinity credit card, Jet Airways Citibank credit card best award, and best elite level.
Earlier also, The Freddie Awards were won by Jet Privilege in the industry award category for their dynamic tier review programme in April 2004. The Airline won 'Best Customer Service Frequent Flyer Program' and 'Best Bonus Promotion Award' in April 2005.
05/05/07 UNI/Daily News & Analysis

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Frankfinn to recruit cabin crew for Air Deccan

Mysore: World's leading airhostess training centre, city-based Frankfinn Institute of Airhostess Training has now become an exclusive Cabin crew recruitment partner of Air Deccan, India's second largest airline after Indian Airlines. Read On >>

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