Jet plummeted 33,000ft in horror crash Killing all on board

 Confusion in the cockpit saw a passenger plane plunge to the ground at speeds of up to 300ft a second in what was the deadliest aviation disaster of the year.

An aeroplane that crashed today, killing everyone on board, plummeted to the ground at a terrifying speed of up to 300ft a second.

The 160 passengers and crew on board the McDonnell Douglas MD-82 stood no chance as the aircraft plunged 33,000ft in about three minutes.

But despite the rapid descent, and the correct diagnosis of the problem by his co-pilot, the captain failed to realise what was going on as confusion engulfed the cockpit.

Flight 708 crashed near Machiques in north-west Venezuela. It had been on an overnight trip from Panama to the French Caribbean island of Martinique.

The tragedy set three grim records – it was the deadliest plane crash of the year, the deadliest in Venezuelan history and the deadliest involving an MD-82.

It’s believed the pilots flew the plane too high given its weight and the ice conditions. Investigators found that it shouldn’t have been flown above 31,900ft, but it had actually been taken up to 33,000ft.

Because it was too high, its speed decreased until it entered a stall.

First Officer David Muñoz, 21, told Capt Omar Ospina: “It’s a stall, Capi! It’s a stall!”

But Ospina, 40, failed to react to Muñoz. Instead, he focused on the engine gauges, which showed a loss of thrust in both engines.

“The reduction in thrust was in fact a symptom of a stall, but Ospina seemed to believe that the engines were the source of the problem,” reports Admiral Cloudberg.

With the necessary action not being taken, it meant the plane continued to plummet, eventually smashing into the ground belly-first at 2.31am local time.

Investigators later found that the engines had been rotating at the normal speed at the time of impact, showing they had in fact been working properly, and the problem had come from the plane stalling.

Virtually all the passengers were French citizens from Martinique, with the exception of one Italian, while the eight-person crew was Colombian.

It later emerged that West Caribbean Airways had been plagued with problems before the crash, and it already had a poor safety record.