KENYA AIRWAYS FLIGHT 431
On January 30, 2000, Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashed into into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Côte d'Ivoire, shortly after takeoff from Félix-Houphouët-Boigny International Airport, Abidjan. There were 169 casualties, out of 179 people on board the aircraft. The aircraft involved in the accident, was an Airbus A310-304, registered as 5Y-BEN. The flight was under the command of captain Paul Muthee, who had logged 11 636 flying hours at the time of the accident. The first officer was Lazaro Mutumbi Mulli, who had 7295 hours of flight time. First officer Mulli was the pilot flying on the accident flight. Both pilots were killed in the accident.
The Flight 431 was an international scheduled passenger service from Abidjan to Nairobi, Kenya, with intermediate stop at Lagos, Nigeria. Shortly after takeoff from Abidjan, at the moment when first officer requested the landing gear to be retracted, the stall warning sounded in the cockpit. A stall warning activated as soon as the aircraft left the ground. The landing gear remained down. As soon as the warning activated, the post-takeoff checklist was stopped, and in response, the crew put the aircraft into a controlled descent. The first officer pushed the control column forward immediately after stick shaker activation, and put the aircraft into a descent. The first officer told the captain to silence the stall warning. The Ground proximity warning system then sounded briefly, but it was masked by the priority stall and overspeed warnings, in accordance with the rules on the prioritization of warnings. The master warning sounded, indicating that the aircraft was overspeeding. At this point the captain realized, how low the plane was, and gave the order to climb, but the aircraft was descending too quickly to recover, and it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, two kilometers east of the airport. The first officer’s action on the control column to stop the stick shaker, following the initiation of a stall warning on rotation, while the aircraft was not in a true stall situation, had put the aircraft into a descent, without the crew realizing it, despite the radio altimeter callouts. The conditions for a takeoff performed towards the sea at night, provided no external visual references, that would have allowed the crew to be aware of the direct proximity of the sea.
With 169 fatalities, Flight 431 remains the deadliest accident involving the Airbus A310 aircraft.
NOTABLE AVIATION ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS