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West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 was a West Caribbean Airways charter flight which crashed in a mountainous region in northwest Venezuela on the morning of Tuesday, 16 August 2005, killing all 152 passengers and eight crew. 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 (FDF) in Fort-de-France, Martinique, France. While flying at 33,000 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 flame-out, did not take the necessary actions to recover from the stall.〔JIAAC final report, section 3.3, pages 123–124〕 After a 7,000 feet per minute dive with engines in a flight idle or near flight idle condition, the plane crashed and burst into flames at 07:01 UTC〔JIAAC final report, section 1.1 "History of the flight", page 9〕 into a field on a cattle ranch near Machiques, in the western Zulia State, Venezuela (about 30 kilometres from the Colombian border). All the passengers were French citizens from Martinique, with the exception of one Italian, acting as the tour operator. The crew was 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. The 160-person death toll made the accident the deadliest of 2005. It is the deadliest air disaster in the history of Venezuela, the deadliest involving a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, and the third-deadliest involving a McDonnell Douglas MD-80 in general after Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 1308 and Dana Air Flight 992. ==Background== Medellín-based West Caribbean Airways started as a charter service in 1998. It specialized in flights to 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 aircraft involved in the incident was delivered to Continental Airlines on 4 November 1986 which operated it until 10 January 2005. At that time it was transferred to West Caribbean Airways, registered as HK-4374X. The jet's tail cone fell off in early July 2005 and was replaced. 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 experience, and the co-pilot 1,341 hours.〔JIAAC final report, section 1.5 "Personnel information", pages 11–13〕〔JIAAC final report, section 1.13 "Medical information and pathology", page 72〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「West Caribbean Airways Flight 708」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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