Tragedy of Kenya Airways 431

The flight originated in Nairobi as Flight KQ430, and was due to land in Abidjan after a stopover in Lagos.Show more

Many Nigerians who travelled to Dubai for duty-free shopping used this flight.[7] On that day, after being held over Lagos, the flight continued directly to Abidjan because of poor local weather conditions.

More specifically, harmattan winds blowing southwards from the Sahara made skies over Lagos unusually hazy on that day, and all incoming flights at Lagos Airport were halted.

After a three-hour layover, the aircraft took off for Lagos at 21:08 GMT. However just seconds after takeoff, at the moment when first officer requested the landing gear to be retracted, the stall warning sounded in the cockpit.

The landing gear remained down. In response, the crew put the aircraft into a controlled descent.The first officer told the captain to silence the stall warning. The Ground proximity warning system (GPWS) then sounded briefly, though the radio altimeter sent out warnings seconds after, cutting off the GPWS warning.

The master warning then sounded indicating that the aircraft was overspeeding, at which point captain Muthee shouted, "go up," but the aircraft was descending too quickly to recover. The aircraft crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, 2 kilometres (1.2 mi; 1.1 nmi) east of the airport, off the Ivory Coast.

The airframe was completely destroyed by the impact.