Was the pilot at fault in the Turkish airlines crash?”
(March 4, 2009) This morning the Dutch investigators are holding a press conference on the Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800 crash at Amsterdam last week and I understand that later Boeing will release a safety bulletin. From a reliable source, the contents of the Boeing bulletin will include the points below. Regrettably they don’t reflect well on the pilots, who are dead of course – but I’d caution that there is a long investigation still to come. * no evidence of fuel shortage, birdstrike, icing, windshear, wake turbulence, or engine, system or control malfunction * the first officer was initially flying the aircraft and was inexperienced in airline operations * autopilot and autothrottle were in use * the aircraft was initially high and fast on the approach and at about 2,000ft above ground the throttles were pulled to idle * the authrottle went to “retard” mode and the throttles then stayed at idle for about 100 seconds during which time the speed fell to 40kt below reference speed
