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, August 16, 2005, killing all 152 passengers and eight crew.
The plane, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, was en-route from Tocumen International Airport (PTY) in Panama City, Panama to Fort de France, Martinique (FDF). The pilots reported trouble with one engine while discussing icing and l...
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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, August 16, 2005, killing all 152 passengers and eight crew.
The plane, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, was en-route from Tocumen International Airport (PTY) in Panama City, Panama to Fort de France, Martinique (FDF). The pilots reported trouble with one engine while discussing icing and later the other engine as well. They attempted to divert the plane to Maracaibo for an emergency landing. After a 7,000 feet per minute dive with engines in a flight idle or near flight idle condition, the plane crashed at about 03:45 local time (07:45 UTC) into a field on a cattle ranch near Machiques, in the western state of Zulia, Venezuela (about 30 kilometres from the Colombian border).
Nearly all the passengers were French citizens from Martinique, with the exception of one Italian, acting as the tour operator. The crew was Colombian. The...
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