Interim report into deadly South Korea plane crash highlights pilot error
Sources indicate "clear evidence" that pilots mistakenly shut down the less-damaged left engine instead of the right after a bird strike.
The yet-to-be-released interim report also suggests pilots landed the aircraft too fast with the landing gear retracted and deviated from standard protocol.
Victims' families disrupted a planned press briefing, accusing officials of prematurely blaming the pilots and calling the interim report inadequate.
Officials subsequently cancelled the briefing and retracted copies of the report, stating it had not been formally released.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
6 hours ago
- Reuters
Teacher dies saving students from inferno in Bangladesh jet crash
DHAKA, July 23 (Reuters) - When a Bangladesh Air Force fighter jet crashed into her school and erupted in a fireball on Monday, Maherin Chowdhury rushed to save some of the hundreds of students and teachers facing mortal danger, placing their safety before her own. The 46-year-old English teacher went back again and again into a burning classroom to rescue her students, even as her own clothes were engulfed in flames, her brother, Munaf Mojib Chowdhury, told Reuters by telephone. Maherin died on Monday after suffering near total burns on her body. She is survived by her husband and two teenaged sons. "When her husband called her, pleading with her to leave the scene and think of her children, she refused, saying 'they are also my children, they are burning. How can I leave them?'" Chowdhury said. At least 29 people, most of them children, were killed when the F-7 BGI crashed into the school, trapping them in fire and debris. The military said the aircraft had suffered mechanical failure. "I don't know exactly how many she saved, but it may have been at least 20. She pulled them out with her own hands," he said, adding that he found out about his sister's act of bravery when he visited the hospital and met students she had rescued. The jet had taken off from a nearby air base on a routine training mission, the military said. After experiencing mechanical failure the pilot tried to divert the aircraft away from populated areas, but it crashed into the campus. The pilot was among those killed. "When the plane crashed and fire broke out, everyone was running to save their lives, she ran to save others," Khadija Akter, the headmistress of the school's primary section, told Reuters on phone about Maherin. She was buried on Tuesday in her home district of Nilphamari, in northern Bangladesh.
.jpeg%3Ftrim%3D0%2C0%2C0%2C0%26width%3D1200%26height%3D800%26crop%3D1200%3A800&w=3840&q=100)
The Independent
11 hours ago
- The Independent
Fire breaks out on Air India's flight from Hong Kong after landing in Delhi
Air India grounded an aircraft for inspection after a fire broke out in its auxiliary power unit, or APU, shortly after landing in New Delhi on Tuesday. The fire was detected while passengers were disembarking flight AI315 from Hong Kong, the airline said in a statement. 'The incident occurred while passengers had begun disembarking and the APU was automatically shut down as per system design,' an airline spokesperson said. The APU is installed at the rear of the aircraft and serves as a backup power source. It is primarily used to start the main engines and operate critical onboard systems while the aircraft is on the ground. Passengers de-boarded safely but the aircraft, which landed in Delhi at 12.31pm local time, was damaged, the airline said. Flight tracking service Flightradar24 identified the affected aircraft as an Airbus A321. This was the third Air India scare in two days. A flight from the southern city of Kochi veered off a rain-soaked runway in Mumbai on Monday. All passengers got off safely but the aircraft's engine and runway infrastructure were damaged. The plane was grounded and both pilots de-rostered. A few hours later, flight AI2403 from Delhi to Kolkata aborted take-off at high speed after a technical issue was detected. The pilots stopped the aircraft, and all 160 passengers were safely disembarked. The flight was rescheduled for later in the evening. These incidents come amid heightened scrutiny of flight safety following last month's deadly Air India crash in Ahmedabad that killed 260 people. A preliminary investigation report released a month after the crash revealed the Boeing Dreamliner's fuel control switches flipped from 'run' position to 'cutoff' within seconds of the take-off. The report said that one of the pilots was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he had cut off the fuel. The other responded that he hadn't. The report caused an uproar with pilot associations accusing the investigators of indirectly blaming the pilots for the crash. A subsequent report in The Wall Street Journal suggested that pilot error could have played a role in the incident. However, Indian authorities condemned the report as speculative and irresponsible. Meanwhile, Air India said it found no problems with the fuel control switch mechanisms across its Boeing 787 and 737 fleet during inspections carried out after the Ahmedabad crash. India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau expects to give a final report detailing its investigation into the crash within a year.
Times
19 hours ago
- Times
Captured: moment seagull hits 600mph Typhoon at air show
A photographer has captured the moment a seagull collided with a Spanish fighter jet, shattering its canopy as it was performing aerobatic manoeuvres at an air show. A lesser black-backed gull flew into the path of the Eurofighter Typhoon as the plane was flying at about 600mph at the Aire 25 air show in San Javier in Murcia in June. Javier Alonso de Medina Salguero, an aviation photographer, captured the incident in a four-shot sequence before and after the moment the bird hit the right side of the windscreen. The final shot shows the shattered perspex and the pilot, who ended the flight and returned to land. The bird just before the strike and, below, the moment of impact JAVIER ALONSO DE MEDINA SALGUERO/SWNS JAVIER ALONSO DE MEDINA SALGUERO/SWNS Tens of thousands of birds hit aircraft in flight every year, almost always at low height near airports. The majority cause little damage. Most cases that make the news involve jets that suffer engine failure after their turbines ingest birds. A bird strike began the sequence that brought down a Jeju Air Boeing 737 in Muan, South Korea, in December, killing 179 people. Windshield strikes, which account for almost half of bird collisions with helicopters and about 20 per cent with fixed-wing planes, can be dangerous. Pilots have been killed and badly injured when larger birds have smashed through the windscreen, hitting them in the head and chest at speeds of more than 100mph. The impact energy of a seagull with a jet fighter near the speed of sound is huge, potentially destabilising it in low-altitude manoeuvres. The cost of replacing the canopy can run well into six figures. • Planes are striking more birds, but Detective Dove is on the case The photographer said he was using a Nikon D7500 with a 200-500mm lens when he saw the Eurofighter pull out of the display. 'They reported over the radio that it had hit a seagull and broken the cockpit. Just then, I looked at the photos I had and saw the whole sequence,' he said. 'I was amazed to see the front of the cockpit broken.' The pilot was able to land safely despite the shattered windscreen JAVIER ALONSO DE MEDINA SALGUERO/SWNS King Felipe was attending the show, in which there were displays by Spain's Eagle Patrol, the RAF's Red Arrows and Italy's Frecce Tricolori teams. The jet that hit the bird was from the Spanish air force's 11th wing, based in Moron.
