Ethiopian airliner down in Africa

[First_Principal]

Crew experience?

I see a number of comments relating to crew hours. In particular it has been said that the FO had '200 hours'. IF this is is total time, and it's correct, then by normal training methodology the FO could, at most, be a newly-minted CPL and have next to no time as a 'released to fly solo' pilot on this aircraft.

The source or veracity of this information appears to be a little hazy, however if it were correct then it would suggest to me that Ethiopian could have been operating outside of their own SOP's as outlined in s1.17.1.7 "Procedure for Flight Crew Pairing" on page 50 of the report into the ET409 accident dated 17th Jan 2012:

ET provided their procedure for crew pairing; the procedure is inserted as Appendix H of this
report. It stipulates under “Inexperience flight crews” that “Captain who has less than 300 hours
and F/O who has less than 100 hours on type should not be scheduled together.”

I offer this as information only and make no personal conclusion nor suggestion that crew experience could have contributed to this accident at this stage, particularly as, to the best of my knowledge, the source of the data is unverified.

Thus this detail from the accident report may simply call into question the veracity of the information regarding pilot hours, the training regime (FO especially), whether '100 hours on type' includes pre-CPL training or 'released to fly solo', relevance to current SOP's for the airline, or failure to follow their own procedure amongst various other possibilities.

FP.