Airlines punished over their pilots’ errors
Print Edition
FIVE airlines, two of them foreign, have been punished over errors that could have resulted in plane crashes, China’s civil aviation regulator announced yesterday.
China Eastern Airlines, Okay Airways, XiamenAir, Orient Thai Airlines and Emirates have been ordered to make immediate corrections. The Civil Aviation Administration of China has also sent senior pilots, engineers and supervisors to the three domestic airlines to inspect their operations and carry out training due to a “landslide of safety conditions,” the administration announced on its website.
Pilot error was responsible for most of the problems, it said.
A captain and deputy pilot with the private, Beijing-based Okay Airways have been suspended indefinitely after one of its cargo aircraft ran out of runway during takeoff at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport on April 27.
The carrier was suspended from operating new flights or introducing new cargo aircraft for the rest of the year.
On Tuesday, the regulator said, the carrier was also involved in an incident in which the tail of a passenger aircraft hit the ground after landing at Nanning in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Punishment in that case has still to be determined but, in a similar incident on April 12, a captain and deputy pilot with XiamenAir were suspended when the tail of their Boeing 737 passenger aircraft touched the ground, something that could have led to a serious accident, the administration said.
Two captains and an assistant captain with China Eastern Airlines’ Sichuan branch had their licenses revoked after an Airbus 319 passenger aircraft suffered damage to its tail and tires when it failed to make a landing during bad weather at an airport in Kangding in southwest China’s Sichuan Province on May 1. After missing the approach, the aircraft flew back to Chengdu.
The administration also said it would be evaluating the performance of the 175 foreign airlines that operate on the Chinese mainland following two incidents.
The left front wheel of an Orient Thai Airlines passenger aircraft from Thailand’s Phuket Island to Nanning was found to be missing after it landed on April 11.
Many other violations were found during a subsequent investigation, the regulator said but didn’t go into detail.
As punishment, the airline, which operates flights to most of China’s cities, has been barred from flying to Chengdu, Xi’an, Nanchang, Nanjing and Chongqing. The carrier was also ordered to reduce its fleet operating in China by five aircraft and applications for new flights were suspended, and was fined 29,000 yuan.
Emirates was asked to overhaul its operations in China after an Airbus 380 superjumbo passenger aircraft suffered low fuel during a landing at Beijing Capital International Airport in January. The captain refused to cooperate with an investigation. The airline has been banned from adding new destinations or aircraft on the mainland for six months.
Zhang Qihuai, secretary general of the Civil Aviation Law Research Council, said pilot error was often the result of fatigue or lack of training.
The rapid expansion on flights and fierce competition had led to a shortage of pilots, so some airlines had cut training and introduced overtime, he said.
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