D Tel: Pilot who paused to pray in crash-landing sentenced to 10years in jail

Pilot who paused to pray in crash-landing sentenced to 10 years in
jail

A Tunisian pilot who paused to pray instead of taking emergency
measures before crash-landing his plane, killing 16 people, has been
sentenced to 10 years in jail by an Italian court along with his co-
pilot.

Daily Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:58PM GMT 24 Mar 2009

The 2005 crash at sea off Sicily left survivors swimming for their
lives, some clinging to a piece of the fuselage that remained floating
after the ATR turbo-prop aircraft splintered upon impact.

A fuel-gauge malfunction was partly to blame but prosecutors said the
pilot had succumbed to panic, praying out loud instead of following
emergency procedures and then opting to crash-land the plane instead
trying to reach a nearby airport.

Another five employees of Tuninter, a subsidiary of Tunisair, were
sentenced to between eight and nine years in jail by the court, in a
verdict handed down on Monday.

The seven accused, who were not in court, will not spend time in jail
until the appeals process has been exhausted.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...s-in-jail.html


COMMENT: An American training pilot told me some years ago an almost
identical story about an Air Algérie domestic flight where he had to
wrest the controls from the Algerian pilot in severe turbulence where
the Algerian began praying loudly and ignoring the procedural rules.
The American saved the plane (obviously) but the sudden and severe
loss of altitude damaged the plane, which had to be retired from
service at least temporarily.