West Caribbean Airways Flight 708

West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 was a charter flight that crashed in northwest Venezuela in the early hours of 16 August 2005, killing all 160 passengers and crew on board. The plane, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, registration HK-4374X, was en route from Tocumen International Airport (PTY) in Panama City, Panama, to Martinique Aimé Césaire International Airport in Fort-de-France, Martinique. While flying at 33000 ft, the aircraft's speed gradually decreased until it entered an aerodynamic stall. The crew, probably under the mistaken belief that the aircraft had suffered a double engine flameout, did not take the necessary actions to recover from the stall. The confusion and lack of action resulted in the crash.

The death toll made the accident the deadliest of 2005, as well as the deadliest aviation disaster to occur in Venezuela, and the second deadliest involving a McDonnell Douglas MD-80 series after Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 1308.

Background

West Caribbean Airways started as a charter airline in 1998, based at Medellin, Colombia. It specialized in flights to the island of San Andrés in the Caribbean, parts of the Colombian mainland, and Central America. A few months before the accident, the airline had been fined $46,000 for lack of pilot training and failure to log required flight data. The airline had experienced a previous fatal accident in March 2005.

The aircraft involved in the accident was a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, manufactured in 1986 and sold to West Caribbean on 10 January 2005.

The captain of flight 708 was 40-year-old Omar Ospina, and the first officer was 21-year-old David Muñoz. The captain had 5,942 hours of flight experience (including 1,128 hours on the MD-82), and the first officer 1,341 hours, with 862 of them on the MD-82.

All the passengers were French citizens from Martinique, with the exception of one Italian, acting as the tour operator. All the crew members were 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.

Accident

Flight 708 took off from Tocumen International Airport at 00:58 local time (05:58 UTC). It climbed initially to flight level 310 (31,000 ft). At 01:39, the pilots were cleared to climb from 31,000 to 33,000 feet. The aircraft reached FL 330 (nominally 33000 ft) at 01:44.

Five minutes later, the crew turned the aircraft's anti-icing systems back on (having turned them off during the final part of the climb). The system uses bleed air from the engines, and this reduces the thrust they can produce. With the anti-ice system on, the highest altitude at which the aircraft could maintain level flight was reduced to 31900 ft. The aircraft was being flown too high for its weight and the icing conditions it faced.

Timeline

All times are UTC. (For local time in Panama and Colombia, subtract 5 hours; for Venezuela subtract 4:30 hours; for Martinique, subtract 4.)

00:58 Flight 708 departs from Panama en route to Martinique.

01:51 Crew reports trouble in one engine.

01:58 Crew requests and receives permission to descend from 31,000 to 14,000 ft.

01:59 Crew sends distress call: both engines flamed out, aircraft uncontrollable.

02:00 Contact with the aircraft is lost

02:01 Plane Crashes In the Venezuelan Perijá Mountains