TransAsia crash pilot switched off wrong engine
The pilot of a TransAsia plane which crashed in Taipei in February had switched off the wrong engine.
A report just released by Taiwan’s aviation regulator said data shows that when one of the plane’s engines lost power, the pilot was heard to say: "Wow, pulled back the wrong side throttle."
The ATR 72-600 aircraft, which can fly with one engine, clipped a bridge and crashed into a shallow river killing 43 of the 58 passengers and crew on board.
Pictures of the terrifying event were posted on Twitter.
Flight GE235 had taken off from Taipei’s Songshan airport and was on its way to the Kinmen islands off the coast of the city of Xiamen in southeastern China.
More than half of the passengers on board were Chinese tourists.
Flight data confirmed the plane stalled and crashed shortly after the working engine was switched off.
Days after the crash, based on fears that pilot error had been to blame, TransAsia cancelled dozens of flights and put all of the 71 pilots who fly its ATR planes through proficiency tests.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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