NTSB faults FedEx pilots
Investigators Fault Pilots for FedEx Crash
By HILARY ROXE
The Associated Press
Tuesday, May 17, 2005; 4:39 PM
WASHINGTON -- The pilot of a FedEx cargo jet that caught fire after landing at the Memphis airport in December 2003 was largely responsible for the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.
The board also found that the flight captain, who was evaluating the pilot, failed to adequately monitor and correct her landing.
The pilot, First Officer Robyn S. Sclair, didn't do enough to account for gusty winds and sufficiently slow the plane as it approached the airport. She brought down the Boeing MD-10 slightly to the right of the runway's center line, investigators found.
The faulty landing overtaxed the right main landing gear, causing it to collapse, and the plane caught fire after veering off the runway, investigators said.
Besides the two pilots, five FedEx pilots were riding to Memphis as passengers. All seven escaped through cockpit windows after a passenger inadvertently released an inflatable escape slide from the side of the aircraft.
Two people, including Sclair, were injured.
Sclair was undergoing a company-mandated evaluation from Capt. Richard W. Redditt after deviating from an assigned altitude over England a month earlier. NTSB reports showed she received two unsatisfactory ratings on MD-11 aircraft in 1999 and 2001. Those scores went up after she received more training.
But Sclair's story led the board to recommend creating oversight and training programs for crew members who showed deficiencies or experienced failures in training environments.
"If you took a look at the person as a whole, you may find a pattern that ... this person may have some deficiencies that can be, in fact, improved and be corrected before they get into a situation like we've seen here," said Mark Rosenker, acting NTSB chairman.
Investigators also found crew members hadn't received adequate training on how to handle exit slides. The board recommended providing more hands-on learning and ensuring training equipment matches the slides used on actual planes.
The NTSB is revising the accident report, and Tuesday's recommendations are not final.
"All of the training programs highlighted have been updated since the accident," said FedEx spokeswoman Kristin Krause.
Krause said Redditt has retired and Sclair is on leave from the company.
Capt. Gary Janelli, a representative of the Air Line Pilots Association, said the report should have given more weight to wind conditions and the first officer's lack of recent training on MD-10 planes.
"This accident, like many others, is the result of multiple failures and multiple factors," he said.
The plane was flying from Oakland on the last leg of a four-day trip. Fatigue was ruled out as a factor in the accident, as were weather conditions, though wind shear advisories were in effect that day.
Investigators said it was not clear exactly how the fire started but the flames consumed the right wing and charred the side of the plane.