Probe links Douala crash to pilot error

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By PAUL REDFERN NATION Correspondent in LONDON
Posted  Monday, March 19  2012 at  22:30

IN SUMMARY

• Concerns have also been raised over a number of possible faults with the plane

An inquest into the deaths of four Britons killed in a Kenya Airways plane crash in Cameroon heard that pilot error was the most likely cause.

However, concerns have also been raised over a number of possible faults with the plane that crashed in May 2007.

At the conclusion of the inquest at Lincoln Coroner’s Court, coroner Stuart Fisher declined to return a verdict of “accidental death”, choosing instead a narrative verdict, which allowed him to highlight the cockpit failings and to call for action against the Cameroon authorities for failing to secure the crash site.

A narrative verdict is a factual account of the findings of the inquest.

Narrative verdicts can be used by a coroner or jury in the UK to express their conclusions as to the cause of death following an inquest.

This is also because in some cases, it can be difficult to code the underlying cause of death from the information provided in the narrative.

A total of 114 passengers were killed when the Kenya Airways flight crashed into a swamp in Cameroon nearly five years ago. Nine Kenyans and four Britons were among the passengers killed.

The inquest into the deaths of Anthony Mitchell, 39, Adam Stewart, 43, his wife Sarah Stewart, 50, and 45-year-old Stuart Claisse heard that the victims may have been unaware of their plight before the plane crashed.

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A report in the Telegraph newspaper in the UK was also highly critical of the pilot flying the plane at the time of KQ 507’s crash.

Overbearing tendency

It pointed out that five years before the crash, an internal Kenya Airways inquiry had criticised the captain’s “overbearing tendency towards his colleagues.”

His co-pilot, by contrast, showed himself to be “subdued by the strong personality of the captain”, Marcus Cook, an inspector at the Air Accidents Investigation Branch told the inquest.

This was also noted in the official crash report which said that “the two pilots did not function as a team”.