World Tourism and Aviation News
Ünal Başusta
The pilots of a Turkish Airlines plane, which crashed shortly before landing at Schiphol airport last February killing nine people, were largely not to blame for the accident, the Telegraaf reports on Tuesday.
The paper bases its claim on a report by the Dutch safety council which is currently being circulated in Dutch and US aviation circles.
However, the paper says, there is heavy criticism of aircraft manufacturer Boeing, which built the 737 and was aware of problems with the radio altimeters.
In their preliminary report on the crash last March, accident investigators said a faulty altitude meter had led to the engines going idle power. The plane was being flown on automatic pilot until the troubles start at about 1,950 feet.
Boeing is being sued by crash survivors and the victim's families in the US. two of those killed worked for the Boeing aerospace company.
Dutch safety council already sent their final report to Turkish Airlines and to Boeing for their review and final comments before it is published.
The final report will probably be published at the end of March, a spokesman for the safety council told news agency Novum.
Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 was a passenger flight which crashed near Amsterdam's Schiphol airport on 25 February 2009, killing nine passengers and crew including all three pilots.
During approach for landing a faulty radio altimeter powered down down both engines of the Turkish Airlines flight before it crashed near Amsterdam airport killing nine people. When flying at about 1,950 feet the plane's left radio altimeter indicated minus 8 feet and the auto pilot assumed Boeing 737-800 had already landed, prompting the automatic pilot to power down both engines to idle.
"The crew initially did not react to these events," because the aircraft was already too fast for the approach to land and when it become too slow an alarm went off that the plane's speed would drop below the minimum, the pilots reacted and increased power both engines but it was too late and too close to the ground.
The weather was misty with low clouds and the runway was not yet visible at the height at which the descent started and the pilots were busy looking for the runways besides other duties. The airplane stalled at 150 meters and crashed 1 kilometer before the runway.
The aircraft initially hit the ground in a field with its tail followed by its undercarriage, with a forward speed of 175 km per hour on impact. An aircraft should normally have a speed of 260 km per hour for landing.
After the accident, instead of correcting the faulty radio altimeter system Boeing issued a reminder to all 737 operators to carefully monitor primary flight instruments during critical phases of flight.
The plane's black box -- which can register 25 hours of flying time and in this case had covered 8 flights-- showed the problem had occurred twice previously during landings but for a too short duration for anyone to be concerned.
Five Turks and four Americans were killed when the plane plunged into a boggy field 1 kilometer from the runways of Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. Passengers said the plane suddenly dropped to the ground during landing. When the plane hit the ground the aircraft broke into two pieces, the tail and the engines broke off.
Most of the fatally wounded were near the rupture, in business class and in the cockpit in which the three crew members died. The section that remained most intact was situated around the plane's wings.