PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Pilot sentenced to 20 years for causing the Cotonou B727 crash
Old 29th Oct 2010, 09:51
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BEA 71
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Munich, Germany
Age: 80
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So far I have only read the first 15 pages or so, it brings back memories of handling ( Turkish ) guest worker flights out of Germany in the 80s. A colleague from ( then ) T 3, LHR, said the situation was worse than the
handling of a Africa bound flight. We did the best we could, but they
still smuggeled huge amounts of overweight handbaggage on board, infants were hidden in bags causing much confusion regarding the total
of passengers on board. I remember two serious incidents where aircraft
nearly stalled. Baggage we did not load for volume reasons, was taken
on the next Turkish flight after a couple of Deutschmark bills had been
given to the aircraft captain by a Turkish " travel agent ". As it came to
light even loaders were bribed for loading unmanifested baggage in the
holds. It has been pure luck that there had been no crash. I doubt the
situation will ever change, the problems in Africa have been known for
decades, there is always someone who gains financially.
BEA 71 is offline