I hope people don't get fear of flying with these "bad" days.
If 6 days on a row, a plane crashes, I'll be on the flight the 7th day. That's some very dark thinking but nothing can keep me of that plane. Although I don't trust those (old) Antonov planes entirely.
That flight would have looked similar to this: ...when (the McDonnell Douglas MD-82, with at least 160* people aboard) was flying over Venezuelan airspace, it had problems with one engine and then with another engine...
Radio contact with the West Caribbean Airways plane was lost roughly 10 minutes later in the area of Machiques, near the border with Colombia some 400 miles west of Caracas in Zulia state. Emergency was declared 20 miles from the Colombia-Venezuela border, it went down in a wooded area.
French civil aviation authority said all 153 passengers aboard were French citizens from Martinique. Overseas French Minister Francois Baroin was sent to Martinique.
PTY - FDF is about 2093 km, the radius in the map is 400miles. Notice this is again a 'holidays' airline.
west caribbean airways: http://www.wca.com.co/ www.westcaribbeanairways.com - Web Page Under Construction. This domain name is. Under Construction.
*some sources give: 152 passengers and eight crew members.
Sad coincidence of events, very sad month for aviation. Let's hope that investigators can find out what went wrong so that we can learn from the mistakes made and make sure that they do not happen again in the future. It has been reported that an explosion has taken place.
Yet another tragic airplane crash! I do have certain questions about this one:
The pilot reported failures regarding BOTH engines. Would this imply fueling problems (water)? And I guess that if it where 'merely' engine problems that an emergency landing would have been possible instead of such an high impact crash. Does anyone now how to relate these engine troubles to the possibility of an explosion or an uncontrolled crash?
The McDonnell Douglas MD-82, that crashed Tuesday, had flown nearly 20 hours straight to cover the company's remaining routes, before tacking on the fatal charter from Panama to Martinique.
Its final set of flights, which began at 7 a.m. Monday, included seven stops in Colombian territory, one in Costa Rica and three in Panama before departing for Martinique.
The Colombian Pilots' Association said it had repeatedly warned the country's Civil Aeronautics Board about the carrier's safety procedures.
The Colombian aviation authority said it had fined West Caribbean on several occasions and for several reasons:
- pilots not getting sufficient rest between flights
- lack of proper maintenance
- lack of proper pilot training and
- overweight cargoes.
Colombia's government owed West Caribbean substantial sums, threatening its financial solvency. Six of the company's seven remaining planes were in maintenance in part due to the financial woes...
