[danielsan]

More than 100 people have died after a Boeing 737 airliner crashed near Cuba's main airport in Havana, the country's worst air disaster in decades.

Three women were pulled alive from the wreckage, but are said to be in a critical condition.

The plane, which was nearly 40 years old, was carrying 104 passengers and six crew members.
Cuban authorities have launched an investigation, and two days of national mourning have been declared.

The Boeing 737-201 crashed at 12:08 (16:08 GMT) on Friday, shortly after taking off from Havana on an internal flight to Holguin on the east of the island.

All six crew members on board were Mexican and the majority of the passengers were Cuban, with five foreigners reported to be among them.

"There has been an unfortunate aviation accident. The news is not very promising, it seems that there is a high number of victims," Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said after visiting the crash site.

It's too early to say what caused the crash, but eyewitnesses on the ground describe seeing the jet burst into flames before crashing into a field close to a wooded area near Havana's main airport.

"I saw it taking off," supermarket worker Jose Luis told the AFP news agency. "All of a sudden, it made a turn, and went down. We were all amazed."

"We heard an explosion and then saw a big cloud of smoke go up," Gilberto Menendez, who runs a restaurant near the crash site, told Reuters.

Mexico's transport department said on its website that "during take-off (the plane) apparently suffered a problem and dived to the ground".

Boeing said that it was ready to send a technical team to Cuba, "as permitted under US law and at the direction of the US National Transportation Safety Board and Cuban authorities". A US trade embargo has been in force against Cuba for many decades.

Four people survived the crash but one died after being transported to hospital, the director of Havana's Calixto Garcia hospital, Carlos Alberto Martinez, told Reuters.

The three survivors are all women, according to Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma: one aged between 18 and 25, one in her thirties and the third aged 39.

"She is alive but very burnt," one of the women's relatives at the hospital told Reuters.

Both the Argentine and Mexican governments have confirmed nationals from their countries were among the dead

The plane had been leased to state airline Cubana de Aviación by the Mexican company Aerolineas Damojh.

The Mexican authorities said the plane was built in 1979 and had been successfully inspected last November.

Mexico has said it was sending two civil aviation specialists to join the investigation.
Aerolineas Damojh, also known as Global Air, has three planes in operation.

According to industry research, last year was the safest in history for commercial airline travel with no passenger jet crashes. But there have been several serious air disasters this year.

Last month, a military plane crashed shortly after take-off in Algeria, killing more than 250 people
In February, a Saratov Airlines plane crashed near Moscow, killing 71 people.

In March, a US-Bangla Airlines flight crashed in Kathmandu, Nepal; 51 people died.

Cuba's deadliest air crash was in 1989, when a Soviet-made Ilyushin-62M passenger plane crashed near Havana killing 126 people on board and another 24 people on the ground.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-44176899

[danielsan]

Almost 40 year old plane!!

[dras]

To old indeed

[wildaxboxer]

Originally Posted by danielsan1971 ↗

Almost 40 year old plane!!

Cuba.. Thats nearly new..

[Hunted]

One day after the crash...

On May 19th 2018 Cuban Authorities reported identification of the victims, most of them Cuban citizens, has begun. Two days of national mourning have been decreed.

Witnesses on the ground reported they saw the aircraft climb out of Havana, turn sharply to the right and go down. A large explosion occurred when the aircraft impacted the ground, the ground shook.

On May 19th 2018 Cuba's Ministry of Transport reported 110 occupants including 102 Cubans, six Mexican crew, 2 Argentinian tourists, one Mexican and two Sahrawi residents of the Cuban Island were killed. The cockpit voice recorder was recovered in good condition, the search for the flight data recorder is continuing.

[William May]

A 40 year old Boeing is not a problem. If it is maintained properly, it is just as airworthy as a new aircraft.
HOWEVER, they have had a problem in the past with rudder reversal on 737s, where the rudder suddenly goes hard right or hard left, even though the crew is asking for maybe a 2 degree turn. (And the rudder drives in the OPPOSITE direction to where the crew had the pedals positioned) This has happened several times, and it is usually on approach or departure, which gives the crew no time to respond. Boeing did a long investigation on this, I think it set a record for lasting OVER 10 years. The cause was very elusive. When I worked for America West Airlines, we ran complete functional tests on dozens of rudder PCU's (Power Control Unit, that moves the rudder one way or the other.), never found anything significant, and removed them for examination. They were spread over all regimes of age, flight cycles, time in service, and time since overhaul or repair, as Boeing wanted to understand what was happening. These PCU's are incredibly complicated, including valving so that if one section fails, other sections are unaffected. Also valves and linkages to move them to "center-only in case of failure, to bypass them and leave them neutral so the other 2 PCU's (There are 3 PCU's total in the rudder system) can move the rudder in the proper direction, and even manual reversion so the aircraft can be steered with cables if there is a total hydraulic failure.
This aircraft may be flying with the old, unmodified PCU's, especially if it has been operating in Mexico. Also, this may NOT be the cause of the accident anyway. It could be something else entirely. It just reminded me, when they stated the aircraft made a "Sharp right turn and plunged to earth"

[durt]

^^

[texastea]

This same aircraft was cited in the past for severe overloading and violation of weight and balance regulations in Guyana.

[nowheretorun56]

Poor people. I bet children were on that. What a terrifying way to die. Poor souls.

[Hunted]

Link to graphic video aftermath.