Criminalisation
This event has highlighted the problem of using accident reports in criminal cases, especially when they are used as the only source of evidence as in the Greek Court.
When a 'proper' police based criminal investigation was done in Cyprus, all the defendants were aquitted.
Contributers to this thread have talked a lot about preflight checks etc but the bottom line is that:
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT THE AIRCRAFT TOOK OFF WITH THE PMS AT MAN
The assumption that it did was based entirely on an erroneous assumption that, as the PMS was found past the MAN mark after impact it must have been there since the engineer used it to do his check.
The PMS suffered very severe damage in the impact and it is only a "cooker switch".
Subsequent examination by world class investigators demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that it was in fact at AUTO prior to being moved by the impact sequence.
The Greek Court did not accept this evidence by non-Greek aviation professionals.
Can I suggest that you send your letters/emails of protest about this miscarriage of justice to your national Accident Investigation Authority, demanding that the investigation be reopened for air safety reasons under Annex 13, 5.13 to establish the true cause of this accident.
Last edited by airsnoop; 29th Apr 2012 at 12:18.