Pilots Jailed, For Praying During Emergency
 

I just read this news today and thought, what??! I'm not sure what kind of comments will follow. That's not why I'm submitting this post. It's just a strange story and thought that I'd share.

NewsDaily: Italy convicts crash pilot who paused to pray

I'm curious what they were charged with. Negligence?

NewsDaily: Faulty altimeter played part in Turkish crash
On the same page... A radar altimeter malfunction causes a 737 AP to shutdown the engines? Does that really mean that it was on autoland or something and the AP idled the engines? Anyone know, or is this another case of the press being nuts?

Hmmm not knowing details of the accident, but based on that short blurb, I say good. You have a resposibility to fly the plane first and until you can't anymore. We as professional aviators are not afforded the opportunity to pray during an emergency. Do it each night and CYA that way.

That is strange.

And also it says he elected to ditch rather than try to land at a nearby airport. !e don't know how far or how high he was from the airport, but if he attempts and can't make it he risks killing more people, the artivle doesn't mention that.

Really strange.

Bad precedence to set, allowing courts/juries to evaluate how emergencies are handled. I thought CRV data was not to be used in dicipinary action. Perhaps Europe is different.

Criminalization of negligence is much more common overseas. In the US you would have to do something unbelievably reckless to get charged, or break a law in the process (ie DUI).

So far US prosecutors have not attempted to to criminalize honest mistakes in aviation.

From what I understand the CA’s Radar Altimeter had been written up several times and during the approach & landing with the Auto-Throttles engaged the RA glitched, reporting -8’. Somewhere around 25-27’ (737 pilots could probably give you the actually number) the auto-throttles are programmed to retard to idle for flare. Since the auto-throttles where engaged they reacted to the incorrect RA sending them to idle. The pilots obviously didn’t recognize the error until it was too late.

Sounds like the Tunisair ATR that crashed in the med a few years back (2005?).

I remember hearing the black box tapes and for the last 5 minutes straight they were running checks and/or trying to restart, for the last minute occasionally one of them would say something like "god help me", so I don't see where they would have been "praying" and "panicking".

If that would have happened in the United States, it would have gone one of two ways:

#1: Christian praying - life sentence
#2: Muslim praying - we can't get in the way of that! no charges, job kept

Europe is different, but don't worry. It won't be different for much longer... :mad:

Christian prayer, Muslim prayer, Hindu prayer...doesn't matter. Can that crap and fly the damn airplane!!! You pray on your own time. When you're in the front office, the buck stops with you.

actually all you right wingers will be happy the ACLU is suing a charter school up here in MN for invoking the muslim faith in the school system and taking govt funding. It goes both ways. Either religion will get you nothing, a checklist will always give you a fighting chance. Religion, a crutch for the weak minded.

Maybe you're joking. But if not, all I can say is 'Boo-Hoo! The poor persecuted Christians in this country!' :)

Mod note: People - this subject title lends itself to a touchy topic to start with right off the bat! Note the below excerpt from the TOS:

Please keep the thread subject matter concentrated on the piloting aspects and decision making process.
Qoutes like the above will lead to this thread being closed.

USMCFLYR

FAILED ENGINE CHECKLIST

MIXTURE . . . . . . . . . . . IDLE CUTOFF
TRANSPONDER . . . . 7700
HAIL MARY . . . . . . . . RECITED

To quote Yeager:

You’re stupid if you get frightened because it interferes with you working your way out of the situation. That’s the way I’ve lived. A while back I was on the Hour of Power Sunday morning TV show, and Reverend Schuller asked me: When you’re up in an airplane and something goes wrong, do you pray to God? And I said, “No, God can’t help me. I have to do it myself.” The reverend just rolled his eyes.

Gotta agree.

I think that when we've done all that we can do in any given situation and things are deteriorating quickly, especially when one's life is at risk, in most cases we as humans call on a Power greater than ourselves.




atp

But I think that's the catch - the pilot didn't do all he could do. If he had prayed and landed successfully, he wouldn't be in trouble, but instead of trying to make a runway, he freaked out and handed the airplane over to his first officer, according to an Italian news source. The plane crash-landed.

Both ways, I know you didn't type that with a straight face. I guess they get one right every once in a while.

Yes I'm joking! Of course the pilots should be running checklists and troubleshooting and doing everything they possibly can to save the aircraft/passengers.

The radar altimeter is the instrument the auto throttles use to know when to go to idle for landing. They had a radar altimeter failure which caused the auto throttles to go to idle way before they should have. All the pilots would have had to do was disconnect the auto throttles and push the power up manually. Or heck don't even disconnect them, simply push them up I've done it hundreds of times it takes almost no strength at all to override the auto throttles even when engaged.

I can't fathom how an experienced crew would let this happen to themselves. Unless there was something else gong on mechanically it is simply unbelievable.

I can't find an article with the excerpt, but I read recently the crew did get distracted by something else and neither noticed the throttles were at idle. No excuse for proper situational awareness.

As to the other story, if you're a person of faith, great, couldn't care less.
But religion is no exscuse to be derelict from your responsibilities in the cockpit.