DutchNews.nl - Turkish Airlines crash pilots 'not to blame'

The pilots of a Turkish Airlines plane, which crashed shortly before landing at Schiphol airport last February killing nine people, were largely not to blame for the accident, the Telegraaf reports on Tuesday.

The paper bases its claim on a preliminary report by the Dutch safety council which is currently being circulated in Dutch and US aviation circles, the paper says. Both pilots were killed in the crash.

However, the paper says, there is heavy criticism of aircraft manufacturer Boeing, which built the 737 and was aware of problems with the altitude meters.

In their preliminary report on the crash last March, accident investigators said a faulty altitude meter had led to the engine shutting down. The plane was being flown on automatic pilot and eyewitnesses said it appeared to drop out of the sky.

Boeing is being sued by crash survivors and the victim's families in the US. Four of those killed worked for the aerospace company.

The final report will probably be published at the end of March, a spokesman for the safety council told news agency Novum.

The primary purpose of having pilots in the flight deck is to fly the aircraft and ensure it is always at the right speed and altitude. Whether the autopilot is on or not.

Ther have three sets of instrument displays which would have told them they were flying too slowly and begining to fall. They have engine displays which would have shown their engines had slowed to idle speed.
They should have seen their throttles physically slide back to idle.

The should have noticed the aircraft nose was rising as the aircraft tried to stay on the approach path.

An normal approach on a 737 is about 140kts. These pilots missed that the aircraft had slowed to 100kts.

These pilots sat and watched their aircraft slow to a dangerously slow speed and did nothing. The pilots failure to properly monitor and fly the plane is the primary cause of the accident.

The altimieter fault started the chain of events but its up to the pilots to take over when the aircraft behaives in correctly.

All they had to do was disengage the autopilot move the throttles to full power and climb out.

The pilots were to blame.

By Martin | January 26, 2010 10:31 PM