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| Inshallah Maintainence Comes Back to Bite Turkish Airlines |
| 2009-03-15 |
| Only the best quotes snipped here, full article at link. On the morning of February 25, Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 from Istanbul crashed short of the runway at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, killing nine passengers and crew. On Wednesday, Dutch authorities released a preliminary report indicating that the crash was caused by mechanical failure, exacerbated by severe pilot error: The aircraft's altimeter - which had malfunctioned twice in the past eight landings - was faulty, and the pilots failed to note this or respond appropriately. It has further been reported that a trainee pilot with less than 25 hours' experience of flying this kind of plane was at the controls. There have been claims that prayers may interfere with pre-flight inspections Employees have come forward with claims that Turkey's governing AKP, a party associated with political Islam, has packed the airline's management and staff with unqualified political allies and co-religionists. The AKP came to power in November 2002 and appointed the new THY management in 2003. The most serious charge - made by senior pilots, union officials, technicians and cabin crew, both on and off the record - is that new managerial policies have encouraged lax standards of aircraft maintenance and the hiring of unqualified staff. REALLY? No way Jose. They charged that many of the new cabin crew, for example, were graduates of religious Imam Hatip schools rather than of technical universities - Imam Hatip schools were, the pilots said, classified as 'trade schools' and the Imam Hatip alumni were therefore 'camouflaged' as trade school graduates. Workers also claimed that manufacturers' guidelines on the replacement of parts were not being followed, that insufficient time and personnel were allocated for ground checks, that maintenance work that should take eight hours was being done in three or four. I do not decide if the plane crashes or not, Allah decides it. It is not for me to decide if they live or die. In the wake of the crash, a source at Turkish Airlines - someone who has nothing to gain by noting this publicly and, in fact, everything to lose - claimed that airplanes requiring pre-flight inspection go shortchanged if they are on the ground in the mornings at prayer time. And in December, 2006, it was widely reported that Turkish Airlines workers had sacrificed a camel on an Istanbul airport ramp as a gesture of thanks for having at last got rid of a batch of troublesome planes. You just can't make this stuff up. |
| Posted by:gromky |
| #2 I'm just a fanboy for commie machinery and would love to hear from someone who actually knows, but it seems to me the main problem with Russian airframes is that they get sold to places like Africa and the Middle East where the concept of making sure all the pieces are screwed down tightly before takeoff has not exactly taken root. Inshallah, indeed! |
| Posted by: SteveS 2009-03-15 21:27 |
| #1 They fly far too many RU airframes like the AN-26. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-03-15 17:41 |