Kenya Airways Flight 507

Investigation

The Cameroonian government established a technical commission of inquiry to investigate the accident. The National Transportation Safety Board of the United States sent a "Go-team" to assist with the investigation.

Early attention as to the cause of the crash centred on the possibility of dual engine flameout during heavy weather. Several clues pointed in this direction, including the time the plane was in the air, the distress call issued by the aircraft (both later disputed), the meteorological conditions at the time of the crash, and the nose-down position of the wreckage. The investigators theorised that this would be consistent with the plane losing power in both engines, attempting to glide back to the airport, and stalling during the attempt.

The flight data recorder (FDR) was recovered on 7 May, and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) on 15 June. Both were sent to the Transportation Safety Board in Canada where they were read out.

The Cameroon Civil Aviation Authority (CCAA) released its final report on the crash on 28 April 2010. The investigation found that the aircraft departed without receiving clearance from air traffic control. The captain, who was the flying pilot, corrected a right bank several times after takeoff. After 42 seconds of flight, the captain indicated that he had activated the autopilot. The autopilot did not engage, nor was the message acknowledged by the copilot. The pilots did not notice that the aircraft was increasingly banking to the right, from 11° when the captain indicated that he had set the autopilot, to 34° when a bank angle warning sounded 40 seconds later. The captain then activated the autopilot, but his inputs on the controls led to a further increase in the bank angle. The aircraft pitched nose down after it reached a height of 2900 ft with a 115° right bank. The two pilots used opposite and conflicting control inputs to attempt to recover the aircraft. The aircraft crashed at 287 kn, at 48° down pitch and 60° right bank.

During captain Wamwea's upgrade training, his instructors recorded the following deficiencies: crew resource management skills, adherence to standard operating procedures, cockpit scan, and situational awareness. A 2002 training reported noted that the captain had a tendency to be overbearing towards his coworkers. The captain had also failed a line check on a scheduled passenger flight when he decided to divert after the standby Attitude Direction Indicator (ADI) failed. He underwent a re-check and passed. Even after becoming captain, these deficiencies were still noted, and instructors filed reports on them. The airline dealt with all of the reports and made remedial recommendations. Other Kenya Airways pilots described Captain Wamea as overconfident and arrogant, but friendly. The CCAA stated that his behavior was likely influenced by his training setbacks. During flight 507, he behaved towards first officer Kiuru in a "paternal" manner.

First officer Kiuru had also failed an instrument flight rules (IFR) and a radiotelephony (R/T) test and had to retake both of them. Although his overall performance was satisfactory, instructors noticed that Kiuru had issues monitoring errors of the pilot flying and calling them out, as well as monitoring the autopilot after engaging it. Coworkers described Kiuru as reserved and not assertive. During flight 507, he was intimidated by captain Wamwea treating him disrespectfully (although he had given Kiuru some words of encouragement), and did not challenge him for his mistakes, instead relying on the captain's confidence.

The CCAA determined the probable causes of the crash to be "loss of control of the aircraft as a result of spatial disorientation (non recognized or subtle type transitioning to recognized spatial disorientation) after a long slow roll, during which no instrument scanning was done, and in the absence of external visual references in a dark night. Inadequate operational control, lack of crew coordination, coupled with the non-adherence to procedures of flight monitoring, confusion in the utilization of the autopilot, have also contributed to cause this situation."