Huh? Ditched as well?

Mandilulur
By Mandilulur

Remember the topic of the pilot who prayed as he was preparing to ditch his plane and was jailed by the Italian government? Well, it's disappeared! The last few QL comments were concerning the cockpit voice recorder and the concerns of the larger pilot community (expressed on Pprune.org) that the Italian government overstepped its bounds by about 3 nautical miles. Wow, such controversial stuff that it needed to be censored! Sorry, PaulCowan, guess we'll just have to talk about emergency checklists, ditching and CRM elsewhere. The rest of you may wish to know that the consensus of the international pilot community has completely cleared the Tunisian pilot of wrongdoing (except for his responsibility as PIC for double-checking the fuel level.) They did not find anything on the voice recorder inappropriate to the situation or contributory to the accident and subsequent loss of life. So, 'fess up, who made the fuss?
Mandi

By Mandilulur• 28 Mar 2009 13:18
Mandilulur

Thank you, Qatari!

Mandi

By anonymous• 28 Mar 2009 11:12
anonymous

http://www.qatarliving.com/node/435379

It was flagged as abuse and was unpublished. Online now

By Eagley• 28 Mar 2009 09:16
Eagley

Aah.. thank you very much, PaulCowan.

".. partial or outright inaccurate."

Yes, and innocently or not, it's still misleading and has far reaching and damaging consequences.

*****************************************

Don't want no drama,

No, no drama, no, no, no, no drama

By stealth• 28 Mar 2009 08:25
stealth

easy food fodder for the extremists once again.

By Mandilulur• 28 Mar 2009 04:05
Mandilulur

Yes, the interchangable fuel gauges can be fixed - that is what the aviation industry does after an accident/incident. That is why there are investigations. I am much less hopeful about the Italian judiciary. Not gonna get in their airspace voluntarily (or even slightly outside)!

Mandi

By PaulCowan• 28 Mar 2009 01:38
PaulCowan

There are a lot of issues here, including the role of the media and how the output of a single stringer with a an international agency can create the accepted history of events, which may be partial or outright inaccurate. This may also be a case where events have been distorted to fit a preconceived agenda, either on the reporter's initiative or through him innocently reporting the approach taken by the prosecutor/judges.

Agenda driven news becomes possible when the global media come to rely on a single source agency, so it is republished a million times, instantly fitting Lenin's dictum, that a lie repeated often enough will be believed.

On a more practical level, the incident raises questions about the interchangable fuel gauges - which hopefully have been all been modified by now - the technical competence of the airline and the nature of the Italian judicial system.

By anonymous• 28 Mar 2009 00:56
anonymous

After Paulcowan's entry that thread became valuable dont know why it got deleted.

Paulcowan and Daniel pls continue with ur facts

By PaulCowan• 28 Mar 2009 00:54
PaulCowan

Here's what the reps of 100,000 pilots said:

Auckland 25 March: The delegates to the 64th Conference of the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’

Associations (IFALPA) unanimously voiced their dismay when informed that once again the compulsion to apportion

blame has outweighed the greater need to improve the safety of air transport. In Palermo yesterday sentences, totaling

62 years, were handed down against the flight crew and management of Tuninter in connection with the August 2005

ditching of an ATR72 off the coast of Sicily.

The technical investigation into the circumstances leading to the crash revealed that it happened because an incorrect

fuel gauge sensor was fitted to the aircraft which, in turn, lead to a double engine failure due to fuel exhaustion. The

flight crew reacted to the loss of power in a textbook fashion and completed a successful ditching at sea. Under the

internationally accepted approach to accident investigation such circumstances would not be grounds for a criminal

prosecution.

IFALPA strongly believes that this prosecution was totally unwarranted given the facts of the accident and furthermore

once again calls into question its commitment to the improvement of air safety. Italy has been criticized in the past for

its stance on accident related prosecutions and this case provides another example of this policy.

IFALPA calls on the Italian Government to act now to amend the laws which continue to have a detrimental effect on

air safety and in doing so improve the safety of the travelling public.

Notes to Editors

The International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations represents in excess of 100,000 pilots in more than 100

countries world-wide.

By anonymous• 28 Mar 2009 00:34
anonymous

you read it right. Paul Cowan is wrong.

My thoughts are my own, but I doubt my Mum would agree with some of them.

By PaulCowan• 28 Mar 2009 00:18
PaulCowan

Oh, you're going on Daniel's post, which (as I recall) was based on the Reuters report/Court case, rather than checking out all the other pilots chatting about it on pprune. Some of them have read the accident investigation report and others having heard the cockpit voice recording (which you can listen to, too). Obviously, if the impression created by the news report was correct that would be something else....

By PaulCowan• 28 Mar 2009 00:10
PaulCowan

Alexa, the pilots CLEARLY said that he should have conducted a dip-stick check on the fuel when he refilled because there was either some discrepancy in the paperwork or the figure was unrealistic. However, that does not seem to have been part of the Italian case against him.

Apart from that, they said he didn't panic, made the right decisions, followed the rules, went through the proper checklists and was generally the hero of the hour. They considered muttering "God help us" or whatever while he worked to be a complete non-issue.

By PaulCowan• 28 Mar 2009 00:04
PaulCowan

It did seem an odd point to bin that thread, just as we were rescuing the pilot's reputation and putting the Italian judiciary, the plane manufacturers and the Western media in the dock.

By Eagley• 27 Mar 2009 23:51
Eagley

hmm.. and I didn't have time to read the thread except for a quick glance at the OP and 1st post. I posted to tag the thread to read later when I could find the time to. Pity it got removed. I wanted to read and learn more from others' opinions.

Mandi, thanks for the update and glad that the consensus of the international pilot community has completely cleared the Tunisian pilot of wrongdoing.

*****************************************

Don't want no drama,

No, no drama, no, no, no, no drama

By anonymous• 27 Mar 2009 23:51
anonymous

I didn't keep up with the thread either, once it started going south. Well, no matter how "free" we feel in QL, we still have to keep in mind we're not in Kansas anymore and the mods do have their hands full at times.

By Mandilulur• 27 Mar 2009 23:05
Mandilulur

Well, yeah, NFH, probably not but the last five or six posts were pretty innocuous, including the rather nice post that penny mentioned. I saw some unpleasantness earlier but the thread seemed to be going in a postive direction (finally.)

Mandi

By anonymous• 27 Mar 2009 20:19
anonymous

I think he was genuine too. He seemed to know what he was saying.

My thoughts are my own, but I doubt my Mum would agree with some of them.

By anonymous• 27 Mar 2009 20:14
anonymous

Mandi, I don't think it was the pilots' comments that caused the thread to be removed.

By anonymous• 27 Mar 2009 20:10
anonymous

The last I saw of that post was somebody called Daniel who said he was a Muslim Pilot.

All he said was; he would not have prayed then and there as he trusted his passengers were praying; his job was to land the plane safely.

My thoughts are my own, but I doubt my Mum would agree with some of them.

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