Kenya Airways flight missing... more than 100 onboard

[Brent]

NAIROBI, Kenya - Kenya Airways said Saturday it has lost contact with a 737-800 aircraft carrying more than 100 people that took off from Cameroon.

“The last message from the aircraft was received by the control tower in Douala immediately after take-off,” Kenya Airways said on its Web site.

The flight departed Douala at 12:05 a.m. and was to arrive in Nairobi at 6:15 a.m.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18499857/

[Janice]

They will probably find the plane if it crashed. What a shame so many people.

[Nimbus]

The 737-800 series is fairly new '97 wonder what happened?

There is almost 1500 miles of rain forest between Nairobi and Yaounde the usual stopover.

[tropicana]

yeah, 114 people feared dead. The weather at the time of the crash was said to have been bad, with thunderstorms. This may turn out to be a contributing factor in this crash, since I read they have said Kenya Airlines is among Africa's safest airlines to travel on.
Way too sad

-justin-

[Nimbus]

Since 2001 Kenya Airlines has been using high resistance composite winglets to conserve fuel on their 737 800 series planes. Lightning and composites generally are not compatible because heat is generated due to the low resistance.

planes built of all metal can survive major ligtning strikes because the metal skin conducts the lightening away from fuel storage areas rather than create localized heat.

KQ flight 507 crashed within 15 miles of take off meaning they had not climbed above the higher risk cloud to earth lightning strike zone.

They should find evidence near the crash scene if this is the case. You have to expect a certain number of lightning strikes on aircraft with as many landings and takeoffs as kenya airlines makes in a tropical environment. I hope they can fix the problem.

[nystate]

Since 2001 Kenya Airlines has been using high resistance composite winglets to conserve fuel on their 737 800 series planes. Lightning and composites generally are not compatible because heat is generated due to the low resistance.

IIRC the 737-NG winglets have only been around for a few years now....I don't believe that they were available in 2001 and I don't believe that Kenya Airlines was operating the 737-800 in 2001. I'll do some fact-checking and get back to you...