Jeddah - Kano

On December 19, 1994 at 07:06 PM, Jeddah - Kano experienced a crash involving Boeing 707, operated by Nigeria Airways, with the event recorded near Kiri Kasama Jigawa.

The flight was categorized as cargo and the reported phase was flight at a plain, valley crash site.

5 people were known to be on board, 3 fatalities were recorded, 2 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 60.0%.

Crew on board: 3, crew fatalities: 1, passengers on board: 2, passenger fatalities: 2, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is technical failure. The aircraft was on a cargo flight from Jeddah (JED) to Kano (KAN). The total cargo uplift was 35 tonnes packed in 13 pallets and some loose bundles of merchandise that were loaded in the lower cargo hold. The departure from Jeddah was delayed for thirteen hours because of problems starting the n°4 engine. The Boeing 707 departed at 13:48 UTC. As the aircraft approached N'Djamena at FL350, about 17:00 UTC, the flight engineer noted a strange smell in the cockpit. The ground engineer and the loadmaster who were sitting in the cargo compartment area of the aircraft confirmed that the smell had persisted for a while around them. It appeared that the area around pallet number 11 was misty. The pallet was sprayed with a fire extinguisher and the smoke evacuation procedure was carried out. This stopped the fumes temporarily. The aircraft was now halfway between N'Djamena and Kano with about 40 minutes flight time to go. At 18:00 the flight was cleared to descend. Then the Master Warning sounded, followed one minute later by a Fire Warning. Smoke entered the cabin. A descent was initiated with a descent rate close to 3,000 feet per minute. Later the pitch trims became ineffective before the aircraft crashed into marshland. Tire ground marks at the scene of the accident indicated that the aircraft must have descended very slowly into the elephant grass and may have somersaulted on contact with the water, then exploded and disintegrated along the wreckage trail. Both loadmasters were killed as well as one crew member. Both other occupants were injured.

Aircraft reference details include registration 5N-ABK, MSN 20669, year of manufacture 1972.

Geospatial coordinates for this crash are approximately 12.5981°, 10.2514°.