What?!!

[ian in lancs]

Sometimes you read something that's unbelievable.

"An ATR-72 pilot who was alleged to have failed to follow procedures in an emergency ditching and prayed instead has been jailed for 10 years. The Tuninter ATR-72 crashed in the Mediterranean killing 16 people in 2005."

Aerospace International
May 2009 p7
Royal Aeronautical Society
London

emphasis is mine

The pilot's prayer seemed to have worked - he survived...

[Allanv]

Pray or not he was fked from the start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuninter_Flight_1153

If his instruments were correct he could have glided to safety.

But mistakes were made.

Forgot to add praying will not make it better.

Edited by Allanv on Friday 1st May 23:33

Edited by Allanv on Friday 1st May 23:36

[Eric Mc]

I think that the courts are being rather harsh in this case. I doubt that a UK or American court would sentence a pilot to serve jail time in such circumstances.
Often, crews don't do absolutely everything perfectly in situations like this. Sometimes they do some things exactly right but, in the strained circumstances they are facing, do not optimise all their alternative choices.
The ditching procedure was carried out pretty well, according to the reports I read and as shown the TV documentary on National Geographic.

[anonymous-user]

I've seen this before with a small minority of middle eastern pilots, who when faced with a problem, some of them simply assumed everything was gods will rather than doing their job and trying to sort it out.

I sometimes become very religious when flying. Never as as substitute to following the SOPs though.

[eccles]

el stovey said:

I've seen this before with a small minority of middle eastern pilots, who when faced with a problem, some of them simply assumed everything was gods will rather than doing their job and trying to sort it out.

I sometimes become very religious when flying. Never as as substitute to following the SOPs though.

Whilst working in the RAF up at Valley on the line we had quite a few middle eastern students come through the training program. For some of the more devout ones, it was quite normal for them to put some of the seat pins back in before takeoff believing that their god would sort out the small matter of whether they lived or died if something went wrong.

[Eric Mc]

Whether a pilot prays for heklp is neither here nor there. However, do you think a ten year jail sentence is justified for not performing absolutely perfectly in the cockpit?

[paintman]

Perhaps he's being used as an example to other pilots in a similar way to the unfortunate Admiral Byng who was shot for 'failing to do his utmost' leading to Voltaire's comment 'it pays to shoot an admiral from time to time to encourage the others'.

Edited by paintman on Sunday 3rd May 12:12

[Battenburg Bob]

It would appear the main evidence was a few words on the CVR. He might have been praying, but I don't see how that proves he wasn't trying his best.

[Eric Mc]

I think it's a pretty outrageous sentence actually. Scapegoating at its worst.

[john_p]

Eric Mc said:

I think that the courts are being rather harsh in this case. I doubt that a UK or American court would sentence a pilot to serve jail time in such circumstances.

I agree. The faulty fuel guage indicated there was fuel in the aircraft, when there was not. From the Wiki page it says "The captain of the ATR did not know that his aircraft was out of fuel and focused on trying to restart the engines; the procedure to do so does not include feathering the propellers."

Very harsh, IMO.

[shouldbworking]

Just reading the interwebs on this... he took off with the gauges saying that the fuel level in the aircraft had increased changed without any evidence to show that itd been refueled - personally I think that is a poor decision, but to my mind (and maybe eric can shed some light on this) it took off with 2.5 tonnes less fuel than it ought to have had - apparently thats a good 10% of its max tax off weight so I would think the pilot would have though 'hmm, fuel level appears to have changed... but the planes climbing like its got nowhere near that amount in' and made some enquiries.

Granted, 10 years is a ridiculous sentence, but I dont think he is without blame. Im an interweb expert dontcha know

[Eric Mc]

There was certainly an element of crew error in thios accident. There often is. The problem is that singling out the pilot when there were other contributing factors seems extremely harsh. Should not the tecchie who slotted in the wrong fuel gauge be the most "guilty" person?