Boeing is being sued over a 20-year old plane crash by a defunct airline. The planemaker has gone to court to block the case. The Boeing Company v. Cameroon Airlines was filed last week in the Western District of Washington.
Back on December 3, 1995 Cameroon Airlines Flight 3701 from Cotonou to Douala crashed with 76 people on board. 68 passengers and 3 crew members perished when a compressor blade in the Pratt & Whitney JT8D engine fractured on the Boeing 737-200.
Credit: Christian Volpati via Wikimedia Commons
Near touchdown, the aircraft rose slightly. The crew attempted a late go-around but the plane couldn’t accelerate or climb safely and pilots lost control. The aircraft rolled sharply left, struck trees, and crashed into a mangrove about one mile left of the runway and caught fire, destroying the cockpit voice and data recorders.
The investigation concluded that if the pilots had identified the engine issue sooner, a properly executed go-around would have been possible. So the crash was deemed the result of separation of the left engine blade (producing power loss and destabilizing the final approach) and the late, slow go-around which produced irreversible loss of speed.
The crew had not received simulator training for an engine-out go-around. The successor career to Cameroon Airlines added simulator exercises, go-around decision training, briefings, and crew-resource-management addressing this.
Cameroon Airlines, which ceased operations 20 years ago and was replaced by Camair, says Boeing is responsible for failing to:
- install an alarm informing the pilots that an engine had lost power.
- provide training for a go-around in this scenario.
They contend that if the pilots had received a clearer warning and scenario-specific training, they would have identified the failed engine sooner, configured the aircraft correctly, preserved airspeed, and either landed or completed the single-engine go-around. Camair is seeking $179 million for replacement aircraft ($40 million), operating losses ($130 million), and reputational harm ($8.7 million).
Boeing is trying to get the lawsuit blocked because Purchase Agreement No. 1239, executed November 17, 1984, contains:
- A Washington choice-of-law provision (which the airline breached by suing in Cameroon).
- The airline’s express waiver and release of other warranties, liabilities, and claims concerning nonconformity or defects including implied warranties, tort and negligence claims, and direct, incidental, and consequential damages.
- An indemnity protecting Boeing and personnel providing specified post-delivery maintenance training, service support, and related assistance.
Credit: Konstantin von Wedelstaedt via Wikimedia Commons
This seems mostly straightforward! Washington law lets you disclaim implied warranties, permits exclusive remedies and limitations on consequential commercial damages unless they are unconscionable, and allows negligence releases with exceptions for public policy, adhesion, and gross negligence.
Maybe the airline can still claim that Boeing was negligent in its post-sale training and that the waiver violates Cameroonian public policy (but then the state-owned carrier shouldn’t have agreed to it).
But even if Camair manages to sustain its suit, it seems like the stronger beef is with Pratt & Whitney than with Boeing, and that the airline’s own crew and its training program outweigh Boeing’s contributory negligence.
Cameroon Airlines’ 737-200 pics were not available?
*checks internet*
*finds lots of pics of Cameroon Airlines 737-200 pictures*
Judging from the information presented, I find the suit ridiculous. And, even if they sued P&W, they had the plane in their fleet for at least 7 years (last 732 was built in 1988). Would they even have the records to show they did proper service in those 7+ years?
Paging @Sean M, unofficial VFTW ‘African airline correspondent,’ for a spicy ‘hot-take’ on this $179M ghost lawsuit!
Here we go again, another “I’m not a lawyer, but”-comment from Ohio-based @This comes to mind. Sir, please, provide us all with some potentially-harmful, unsolicited, inaccurate medical treatments, next! And, bring-in @George Nathan Romey for a full-blown conspiracy-filled anti-vax rant about Wawa, for the coup de grâce!
I find it extremely hard to believe that the crew was NEVER trained on ALL single engine Non-Normal procedures. From what Gary has written I think most well trained B737-200 pilots would have immediately recognized the engine failure and selected Flaps 15, added 4 knots to the Vref speed and landed. Left engine (#1) failed, rolled left and crashed left of the runway. I suspect failure on the part of the Pilot Flying to correct for the asymmetrical thrust from right engine (#2). I don’t like blaming pilots but this appears to be a failure to take corrective action and punishing Boeing for the airline’s less than essential training and the follow-up is wrong.
Not a lawyer but the damn statute of limitations has passed!
SOL= both Statute of Limitation and “Shit-out-of-luck”
How apropos
I find it hard to belive that an airline crew could not correctly identify and follow correct procedures for an engine failure.
What kind of trainning did they recieve and by who?
They wait 20 years to file? Seems to me like this is more about an attempt to shake down Boeing while it’s in a (very self-inflicted) time of weakness than a righteous attempt at justice…especially since they haven’t gone after Pratt & Whitney whose engine’s failure is to blame for this.
Who gets the money if the airline is defunct? Or who is actually be sueing?