Cameroon Airlines Flight 3701
Boeing 737-2K9(A) · Loss of control on go around due to thrust asymmetry
From Cotonou Cadjehoun International Airport (COO) to Douala International Airport, Douala, Cameroon
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA96RA014
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 71 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 76
- Survivors
- 5
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 5
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Boeing 737-2K9(A)
- Flight
- UY3701
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- TJ-CBE
- Operator
- Cameroon Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- 71
- Route
- From Cotonou Cadjehoun International Airport (COO)To Douala International Airport, Douala, Cameroon
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Non-U.S., Commercial
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Not recorded
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Not recorded
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Not recorded
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
On 3 December 1995, Cameroon Airlines Flight 3701, a Boeing 737-200 operating a scheduled international passenger flight from Cadjehoun Airport, Benin, to Douala International Airport, Cameroon, crashed on its second approach to Douala after it lost control following a loss of power in its left engine. Of the 76 occupants, 68 passengers and 3 crew members were killed. Three passengers and two crew members survived injured.
Accident
On 3 December 1995, the aircraft, operating a scheduled domestic passenger service from Cadjehoun Airport, Cotonou, Benin, to Douala International Airport, Douala, Cameroun, took off from Cadjehoun Airport. The Boeing 737-200 had 71 passengers and five crew on board and after a one-hour flight was ready to land at Douala International Airport, but as the landing gear was lowered the nose gear light showed that it was not down. The pilots called air traffic control saying that they had landing gear problems and the crew elected to abort the approach. Some minutes later they tried a second approach but the pilots did not see that the engine two was operating at high power while the No. 1 engine was not developing power. The aircraft then entered into a steep dive, hitting two trees and uprooting a third, before crashing in a mangrove swamp around 0.9 nmi to the left of the runway centerline. The aircraft burst into flames, killing 71 passengers and crew. Five people survived the accident; they were all seated in the rear section of the aircraft.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The prime minister of Cameroon put into place a Commission of Inquiry that was to perform all necessary investigations. As such, on 7 December 1995, the commission was set up and subsequently commenced its work on 12 December 1995. The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) were opened by the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) in their labs. A counter-expertise was also performed by the National Transportation Safety Board in their labs. Both flight recorders were recovered 14 hours after the crash, however they were both destroyed by the post-crash fire, rendering them unusable.
The final report was submitted in February 1996.
The accident report determined the cause of the loss of control and the loss of power to engine No. 1 to be the following:
The probable cause of the accident is a loss of control during a go-around attempt made during a maneuver to reach the runway with degraded performance
Seriously contributing to this:
The detachment by structural fatigue of a first stage compressor blade of the No. 1 engine which resulted in a loss of power and destabilization of the trajectory when landing
The late or slow execution of the go-around procedure with an unidentified single-engine configuration, leading to irreversible loss of speed.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Cameroon Airlines Flight 3701” (revision 1353385530, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: Cameroon Airlines Flight 3701
- Revision
- 1353385530 · 2026-05-10 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q5026437
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA96RA014
- Event ID
- 20001207X04989
- Case number
- DCA96RA014
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Cameroon Airlines Flight 3701" (page 26185646, revision 1353385530); merged with NTSB case DCA96RA014 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record DCA96RA014
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Reviewed (2026-09-19): Cameroon Commission of Inquiry final report TJ-CBE, https://asn.flightsafety.org/reports/1995/19951203_B732_TJ-CBE.PDF
- Ground fatalities
- Reviewed (2026-09-19): Cameroon Commission of Inquiry final report TJ-CBE, https://asn.flightsafety.org/reports/1995/19951203_B732_TJ-CBE.PDF
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Cameroon Airlines Flight 3701" and NTSB case DCA96RA014, matched by the same aircraft maker and place and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- Death toll settled: the NTSB record (DCA96RA014) gives 72 and the Wikipedia article 71; Cameroon Commission of Inquiry final report TJ-CBE gives 71. The report lists 3 crew and 68 passengers killed, 0 others, and 5 injured survivors out of 76 aboard. It also records that one survivor died while being carried from the crash site, and that death is inside the 71. The NTSB figure of 72 is wrong.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.