More flights canceled while TransAsia retrains its pilots
Print Edition
TAIWAN’S TransAsia Airways yesterday announced more flight cancellations as pilots were recalled for retraining after its second plane crash in seven months.
On Saturday, the airline said 90 flights, all domestic, would be canceled by today.
“We’re scheduled to cancel another 32 flights on Tuesday as pilots are recalled for the retraining program,” a spokeswoman said.
She said more of the airline’s domestic flights could be hit if the tests for all its 71 ATR pilots, which began on Saturday, could not be completed in four days as scheduled.
On Friday, Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration ordered the retraining after it emerged that pilots may have inexplicably shut off the wrong engine before Flight GE235 went down in the Keeling River in Taipei last Wednesday. Pilots who fail the tests will be grounded immediately and indefinitely pending further training.
The TransAsia ATR 72-600 plane, on route from Taipei to the offshore island of Kinmen, plunged into the river shortly after take-off with 53 passengers and five crew members on board.
Forty people have been confirmed killed, 15 survived and three are still missing.
Dramatic footage showed it hitting a road as it banked steeply away from buildings and into the river, leaving a trail of debris including a smashed taxi.
Yesterday more than 160 divers were searching the river for the three who remain missing. The three are all male, with two tourists from the Chinese mainland and one from Kinmen.
The airline said four memorial services for the victims had been scheduled.
Aviation authorities have said TransAsia Airways failed to meet around a third of regulatory requirements imposed after a crash in Taiwan’s western Penghu islands last July that killed 48 people.
Investigators are still trying to establish what caused Wednesday’s crash, but initial reports from the black boxes found the right engine had “flamed out” about two minutes after take-off.
Warning signals blared in the cockpit and the left engine was then shut down manually by the crew, Taiwan’s Aviation Safety Council said.
Analysts say the pilots may have caused the crash by turning off the wrong engine.
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