Secrets of the KQ black box

By NATION Reporter

The final moments of the Kenya Airways jet that crashed into the sea, killing 169 people, can be revealed today.

The last words spoken on the flight deck as the pilot fought to save his stricken jet are clearly revealed by a transcript of the plane's 'black box' cockpit voice recorder.

As a warning signal sounded to show the plane had stalled, the voice of the main pilot, Captain Paul Muthee, is heard giving the clear command to his co-pilot Lazarus Muli - Go up!

Within seconds the warning horn shut off and the hideous sound of the plane's first impact is heard.

And then, silence.

Both men died in the crash three months ago as the Airbus 300 took off from Abidjan in Cote d'Ivoire, heading for Lagos, Nigeria.

After a lengthy struggle to recover the vital cockpit voice recorder (CVR), and flight deck recorder (FDR) both black boxes were sent to Canada, as a neutral country, for decoding.

The transcript of the CVR - technically called a "dry run transcript" was the result of experts from the airline, the Airbus manufacturers and Cote d'Ivorian and Kenyan civil aviation officials listening to the recording and agreeing on its content.

Each sound on the transcript from Flight KQ431 is given its own time to one hundredth of a second and all statements are attributed wherever possible either to the First Pilot, Co-pilot (also the First Officer) or Air Traffic Control.

In one nightmarish sequence, the air traffic controller can be heard counting down the height of the plane as it dived from 300ft into the sea - a journey to death that took exactly 7.4 seconds.

The crash happened just 40 seconds after two strange sounds were recorded during lift-off.

The section of the transcipt obtained by the Nation opens with the command by Captain Muthee, "V one and rotate" ... one of the many checks that take place during lift-off.

Next is the first indication of trouble. Just 4.5 seconds later there is what the transcript describes as "a very pronounced popping sound, possibly engine related."

Then, exactly one second later, comes "a subtle puff sound."

Captain Muthee: Positive.

Officer Muli: Positive rate of climb, gear up.

Then 1.7 seconds later the flight crew knew they were in trouble, as the transcript records: "Start of the audible stall warning."

Captain Muthee: "Uhhoo!" (noted on the script as exclamation/surprise/stress).

The voice of the (unidentified) air traffic controller then cuts in with the aircraft's altitude reading, in feet: 300. Less than two seconds later the tape records a sharp breath by one of the pilots, followed by Officer Muli making the sound: Ahhh?

Three seconds later, Mr Muli asks: What's the problem?

Relentlessly, Air Traffic Control keeps giving the altitude countdown as the Airbus goes into what proved to be its fatal dive: 200

One of the pilots, it is not indicated which, takes another deep breath.

Mr Muli: Silence the horn!

After this terse command, which goes unanswered and the stall warning horn keeps sounding, the tape runs on remorselessly as the final seconds of the drama are played out...

Control: 100

Sound of another breath.

End of stall warning.

Blip sound.

(Air Control counting) : 50, For... (possibly a cut off for 40ft), 20 ....10

The fire warning alarm starts

Then come the dreadful last words of Captain Paul Muthee - Go up!

Exactly one second later the fire alarm cuts off followed by the first sound of impact.

The recording ends.

After the transcript comes a note that had the landing gear actually gone up, following Captain Muli's response early in the recording, then the aircraft's computerised positioning warning would have been expected as the plane descended. The warning was not recorded however, suggesting to our expert source that the landing gear did not retract.

The Nation invited Kenya Airways to comment on the transcript and make any other observations they thought helpful. They declined to do so, saying that the airline was bound by international law not to comment on a continuing investigation.

Kenya's transport and communications minister, Mr Musalia Mudavadi, is expected to make a statement on the crash in Parliament, next week.

http://www.nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation/Today/News/News61.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), April 30, 2000

Answers

Thanks for this, Carl. Canadian law does not allow the release of the full CVR transcript, so the source has to be questioned for accuracy. Perhaps the TSB will have a press release on their site.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), May 01, 2000.

A survivor's story.

Nigeria Guardian News

While many still have their nerves bruised, their memories haunted and dreams shattered by the ill-fated Kenyan airbus that crashed into the Atlantic near the Houphouet Boigny International airport in Abidjan, in January this year, a survivor of that plane crash, Mr. Emmanuel Madu, says humanity can learn a lesson or two from that unfortunate incident. He shares his mind-chilling survival experience with Abuja Bureau chief, Martins Oloja. Excerpts:

PERHAPS, we should start by saying congratulations on surviving a plane crash that claimed over 100 lives. We want you to narrate your preparation (any premonition?) before you boarded the plane that crashed and how you survived to tell the story.

The plane could not land in Lagos Airport owing to bad weather. Then, the pilot decided to go back to Abidjan to land since he had some Abidjan-bound passengers on board. He thought of picking passengers from Abidjan back to Lagos en route Nairobi to Dubai.

We stayed at the Houphouet Boigny Airport on Abidjan for five hours before we were able to get off the bound again. We left about 9pm Ivorien time. What I noticed obviously was that the crew that flew us to Abidjan had been changed. It was not the same set of people that flew the plane from Dubai, Nairobi down to Abidjan that was to fly it back to Lagos anymore. I also noticed everything was now done hurriedly. Everything seemed to be done in a haste to finish the trip. I made a comment that the new crew could not be as experienced as the ones we had to part with then. I should think the take off time had been slated for 9 p.m. but now it was 9:05 or plus, so there was this rush to get everybody on board to beat time.

The cabin crew also did not pay particular attention to minor details of air safety. For example, normally before taking off, you need to put off certain lights, put off television set and every other demonstration. But that day none of this was done. This particular unusual situation was what kept me on my toes. I asked myself what kind of set-up is this, can't this people observe very simple procedures before an aircraft takes off. With this kind of impression in my mind, I continued to wonder if this minor precautions could not be taken then what happens to more hidden intricacies involved in flying. Amidst this doubt, and just about two to five minutes of take off into mid-air the aircraft went down speedily, crashed into the Atlantic ocean. At this state, those lights suddenly went off 'piam'. Just like when NEPA seizes light, there was complete darkness inside the plane.

Before the instruction 'jack' which took place for just three times and then drop off the sky suddenly into the ocean, the rest had become history.

Where did you join the aircraft?

I joined them right from Dubai. It is a Kenyan Airways Boeing that took us to Nairobi. This was where they brought this Air-bus 310 from Nairobi to Lagos. Initially, I felt the pitch of the engine was too high compared to the performance it was delivering for my comfort but since I was not a pilot I said well, 'that was not my field.' But I resolved to pray persistently while on air. As a trained engineer with the proportion of the pitch and the power, I concluded something was wrong.

From my observation, the former pilot was more experienced in handling the aircraft despite the inadequacies of the engine.

I saw him carrying out some level of pampering and manoeuvre, at least, that too at to Lagos before the weather hitches came in and the return to Abidjan and our eventual landing. But with this second pilot I saw some measure of boasting and exuberance which cost us a great havoc.

Was there any premonition of danger before embarking on the journey?

"Absolutely, No. But after the little earlier inadequacies I noticed in the plane, I resorted to praying. I picked my rosary (I am a Catholic) and commune with God alone. I tried to psyche the people beside me but I found out they didn't observe most of the things I thought were problems with the aircraft. To them, everything was in order and smooth.

When you noticed these inadequacies, there was nothing you could do to alert the crew?

Of course nothing, because we are talking of something happening in quick successions and in a matter of minutes. Before one could observe a thing during take-off up till when you decided to inform anybody - the crew, the plane had crashed. It was not a prolonged process at all that could enable you call the attention of any of them to even whisper a word.

When danger was imminent, did the pilot alert the passengers and crew altogether?

No, there was no announcement. Perhaps because everything happened so suddenly. And that was the reason why none of the crew members survived the incident. The crew were still sitting with their belts tightened, waiting for the plane to maintain a balance in the air for them to come out and start attending to passengers.

How did you notice yourself as a survivor?

When I knew the jerking was no more effective and the plane was dropping off the sky, I just uttered: "God". I remember I bent over and stood up and asked God again: "What is this?"

At that moment, I was actually still thinking that may be; let it be just a sudden jerk of a plane, hoping that the pilot would still come back to life again. And behold it was total. I was still in a state of mind that the otherwise could not be true. I was still hoping the engines would start off again automatically, but before I knew it the thing hit the waters in a matter of seconds, called free-fall in terms of gravity.

When the plane hit the waters. It scattered throwing some people every where around the Ocean while some were trapped in the main body.

Where were you at that point?

I was thrown out (among those that were thrown off the plane main body) and that was what actually saved me because most of the people who were trapped could not survive.

What threw you out?

It was the force that concentrated on the side I sat when the pilot made its first detour mid-air which he could not manoeuvre before we ended in the Atlantic. Some newspapers reports said: "the pilot was trying to come back to the take off point". But I do not believe. It was the short rotation that took place in the air that emptied some wings of the plane which was never balanced before the crash and broke the parts down the waters.

(snip--the rest of the article is quite interesting)

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), May 01, 2000.

Update

Newsday

Kenya Airways Crash Still a Mystery

By CHEGE MBITIRU, Associated Press Writer

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Investigators have yet to determine what caused a Kenya Airways Airbus to suddenly plunge into the Atlantic Ocean seconds after its Jan. 30 takeoff from Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, according to a report obtained today.

The plane fell from 300 feet off the coast, killing 169 people aboard. According to the preliminary investigation report, which was tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, all of the aircraft's systems were functioning properly as it taxied, gathered speed and lifted off from the tarmac at Abidjan's Felix Houphouet Boigny International Airport.

The report contained a list of maintenance checks by Kenya Airways, as well as an accident information telex from France-based Airbus Industrie.

The Airbus document said that 1.7 seconds after the plane's electronic controls gave the go ahead to lift wheels, an alarm sounded.

''The aural stall warning sounded for 21.5 seconds while the aircraft transitioned from climb to descent,'' said the document, signed by senior air safety official Yves Benoist. The alarm sounded until it was shut off manually by the crew, and was silent when the plane was between 100 feet and 50 feet, ''which was at 3.3 seconds before the first sound of impact.''

Though Airbus doesn't say so, it is believed that information came from the cockpit voice recorder -- one of two aircraft instruments examined by investigators at the Transportation Safety Board of Canada in Montreal.

''The cause of the loss of height has not been established and is still being investigated,'' said Kenya's minister of information, transport and communications, Musalia Mudavadi, who presented the report to Parliament.

Mudavadi added that no parameters were recorded on the other instrument, the flight data recorder.

Flight 431, which had originated Jan. 29 in Nairobi, had been scheduled to stop in Lagos, Nigeria, but bad weather forced it to fly on to Abidjan.

Ten people survived after the aircraft smacked into the sea in the early morning darkness of Jan. 30. One man was able to swim ashore in the heaving surf. Many claimed more people might have been saved from the frigid waters had the rescue operation been more professional.

The investigation committee would ''continue its investigation at the crash site to examine the wreckage on the ocean floor and, if necessary, recover key parts of the wreckage,'' the Airbus document said.

The Airbus document, dated April 28, said so far the committee had no plans for ''immediate actions to be taken on the A310 fleet.''

Mudavadi said the progress of the investigation was moving relatively quickly in comparison to others into recent and similar accident investigations.

The investigation committee is led by the Ivory Coast, and includes representatives of Airbus and the French civil aviation agency and Kenya Airways and the Kenyan Directorate of Civil Aviation.

AP-NY-05-04-00 0848EDT< 

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), May 04, 2000.