NTSB Says Poor Pilot Training Caused Asiana Jet Crash - East Idaho News
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NTSB Says Poor Pilot Training Caused Asiana Jet Crash

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GETTY 120913 AsianaCrash?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1386653131468Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Federal investigators have concluded the investigation into the deadly plane crash over the summer of an Asiana jumbo jet at San Francisco International Airport. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says the pilots on Asiana flight 214 were not properly trained and over reliant on the autopilot system.

According to the report, the pilots didn’t recognize that they didn’t have enough power to make the runway safely until it was too late. They also didn’t recognize the throttle was not responding automatically, and simply didn’t know enough to fly the plane themselves.

Former commercial pilot and ABC news aviation consultant John Nance says it’s shocking that the pilots did not know how to manually fly the plane out of trouble.

“Most pilots would have known as soon as they saw the airplane beginning to slow down, and slow down, that they needed to look down and increase the thrust; but because these pilots are really not trained to fly the airplane manually they got terribly confused and we saw the result,” Nance said.

The so-called automation addiction by modern pilots is a major concern at the NTSB, and Nance says this crash should be a major wake up call that something is wrong with airline training today, which is turning out systems operators rather than pilots who can actually fly planes.

“There were no pilots in that Asiana cockpit by the normal measure. These were systems operators, and that’s the way they had been trained. That’s not their fault, that’s the fault of the airline and the fault of the industry,” Nance said.

“You know, it’s not just a matter of pilots needed to fly more, they need to have the training, the experience and the time in just flying an airplane manually to know what they’re doing when the automation fails,” he added.

The NTSB also blamed a faulty emergency response to the Asiana jumbo jet that crashed as it landed at the San Francisco airport in July.

Three teenage girls were killed during the crash and its aftermath; one victim was reportedly run over and killed by a rescue vehicle after the crash.
 
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