Translation of the Austrian Wings article. My schoolboy German plus Google, but I think this is the sense of it.
Smartwings incident: was chief pilot in the cockpit?
In the case of that Smartwings flight, whose crew flew two and a half hours with only one engine to the destination airport, there is a new suspicion.
As reported, an engine failure occurred on August 22, 2019 on the Smartwings flight from Samos to Prague. But instead of following the international regulations for such an incident, landing on the nearest suitable for a Boeing 737-800 airport, the pilots continued the flight almost two and a half hours with only one working engine to the destination airport Prague. Meanwhile, the Czech authorities investigate against the airline and the crew.
Contrary to what has been said by the Czech media, a smartwings spokeswoman said that "there was no danger", "the chief pilot was very experienced," and the crew "had the situation under control."
However, the international practices for the operation of twin-engine aircraft expose the statement of the spokeswoman as a mere protection claim. Because in the case of twin-engined aircraft, in the event of the failure of an engine in commercial flight operations, the air traffic control must always be informed and the nearest airport must be approached. Some airlines even force their pilots to declare an emergency (Mayday call).
Shortly after the incident, a name was repeatedly quoted in industry circles and in the Czech media: Pavel Vesely. This is the Director Flight Operation of the airline concerned, which would make the wording "Chief Pilot", which the spokeswoman has already used to the Czech media, correct.
"Any engine failure on a twin-engined aircraft is a serious loss of redundancy and can quickly lead to further problems, and Airmanship - the healthy aviator common sense - would always suggest a timely landing at the nearest suitable aerodrome Passengers in this case, nothing happened, this is an incident with a very bad aftertaste. "An A320 training captain who spoke to Austrian Wings
Several mail requests to the Smartwings press office and to Pavel Vesely himself, whether he was actually the pilot of the flight in question, remained unanswered until now. If Vesely was the pilot in command, that would raise general questions about the safety culture within the company.
“In our view, the incident is not a trivial matter and we want to investigate what the crew is doing because we do not think it's standard."Vítězslav Hezký, spokesman for the CZ aviation authority to the Czech media
Vesely also left an inquiry unanswered on how he, as Director Flight Operation, judged the crew's behavior if he had not been the pilot himself. Likewise, he could not or did not want to answer the question of what consequences it had for the captain and first officer.