West Caribbean Airways Flight 708



West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 was a West Caribbean Airways charter flight which crashed in a mountainous region in northwest Venezuela on the morning of Tuesday, 16 August 2005, killing all 152 passengers and eight crew.

The plane, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, was en-route from Tocumen International Airport (PTY) in Panama City, Panama to Fort de France, Martinique (FDF). The pilots reported trouble with one engine while discussing icing and later the other engine as well. They attempted to divert the plane to Maracaibo for an emergency landing. After a 7,000 feet per minute dive with engines in a flight idle or near flight idle condition, the plane crashed at about 03:45 local time (07:45 UTC) into a field on a cattle ranch near Machiques, in the western Zulia State, Venezuela (about 30 kilometres from the Colombian border).

Nearly all the passengers were French citizens from Martinique, with the exception of one Italian, acting as the tour operator. The crew was Colombian. The flight was chartered by the Globe Trotters de Rivière Salée travel agency in Martinique. Most of the passengers were tourists returning from a week's vacation in Panama.

Background
Medellín-based West Caribbean Airways started as a charter service in 1998. It specialized in flights to San Andrés in the Caribbean, parts of the Colombian mainland and Central America. According to the director of Colombia's Civil Aeronautics Board, Col. Carlos Montealegre, the company had been fined many times for violations and several of its airplanes had been grounded for inadequate maintenance. One $45,000 penalty cited pilots and other crew flying too many hours, lack of training and failure to log required flight data.

The aircraft involved in the incident was delivered to Continental Airlines on 4 November 1986 which operated it until 10 January 2005. At that time it was transferred to West Caribbean Airways, registered as HK-4374X. The jet's tail cone fell off in early July 2005 and was replaced.

On flight 708, the captain of HK-4374X was 40-year-old Omar Ospina, and the first officer was 21-year-old David Munioz.

Timeline
All times are UTC. (For local time in Panama and Colombia, subtract 5 hours; for Venezuela and Martinique, subtract 4.)
 * 06:00 Flight 708 Departs from Panama en route to Martinique.
 * 06:51 Crew reports trouble in one engine.
 * 06:58 Crew requests and receives permission to descend from 31,000 feet to 14,000 feet.
 * 06:59 Crew sends distress call: both engines malfunctioning, aircraft uncontrollable.
 * 07:00 Plane crashes near Machiques, Venezuela.

Aftermath and Investigation
The 160 person death toll made the accident the deadliest of 2005, and jointly (with China Northwest Airlines flight 2303, which had an identical death toll) the 50th deadliest crash of all time. It followed the crash of Helios Airways Flight 522 on 14 August in Greece, which killed 121 people. The only other plane crashes in 2005 to kill over 100 people were that of Kam Air Flight 904 on 3 February in Afghanistan (104 deaths), and Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145 on 10 December in Nigeria (109 deaths). West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 is the 11th crash of an MD-80 with fatalities since the aircraft was brought into service in 1980. It is the deadliest air disaster in the history of Venezuela and the highest death toll of any aviation accident involving a McDonnell Douglas MD-82.

The Comite de Investigación de Accidentes Aéreos (CIAA, Aircraft Accidents Research Committee) of Venezuela led the investigation on the causes of the accident. United States' National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and French Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile (BEA) also took part. On 22 November 2005, the CIAA released a report suggesting that a buildup of ice inside each engine's PT2 probe was responsible for the accident. Analysis of the cockpit voice recorder showed that the crew discussed weather conditions, including icing, and continually requested and performed descents which is the usual response to a low power or low airspeed situation.

Analysis of the debris showed that both engines exhibited indications of high-speed compressor rotation at the time of impact, which enabled investigators to conclude that the engines were not previously damaged, and were functioning at the time of impact. Ground scars showed that the aircraft impacted with its nose up.

The aircraft had taken off from its origin in a slightly overloaded state. In fact, two flight attendants had to disembark to allow the flight to continue, under the instructions of the captain. This overloaded condition would allow the aircraft to fly at a top altitude of only 33,000 feet without stalling. Unfortunately, due to the poor weather the flight encountered on its way, the crew switched on the engine anti-ice system. The system uses power from the engines, thus reducing their maximum performance. With the anti-ice system on, the highest altitude at which the overloaded aircraft could fly - without stalling - was reduced to only 31,900 feet. The captain noticed the reduction in engine power, but he couldn't realize the source of the problem. Therefore, he started a rapid descent, as a precaution. At that time, the airspeed was already near stall speed and the autopilot had kept a nose-up attitude to maintain a constant height. When the airliner was pummeled by a sudden updraft, it finally entered a stall condition and the crew mishandled it. Confused by the unusual behaviour of the engines, due to the anti-ice system and probably the air flow disruption caused by the updraft, the captain thought he was struggling with an engine flameout and did not recognise the deep stall situation.

Final report
The Junta Investigadora de Accidentes de Aviación Civil released their final report into the accident and found the probable underlying causes of the crash to be the result of pilot error. Underscoring the finding listing pilot error as a cause, the JIAAC noted a lack of both situational awareness and crew resource management which would have better enabled the crew to properly respond to the stall and the severity of the emergency. The report stressed that the crew failed to operate the aircraft within its normal parameters, which resulted in a stall that was not properly recovered from due to poor decision-making and poor communication between the pilots.