Pilot tells of SilkAir captain's "disturbing" breach
Ladypilot
captain of a SilkAir flight that crashed in 1997 told a Singapore court
on Tuesday of a ``very disturbing'' safety breach by the pilot.
SilkAir first officer Lawrence Dittmer recounted three incidents,
including one where SilkAir Captain Tsu Way Ming executed unusual
manoeuvres while landing a flight in Manado.
Tsu captained Flight MI 185, en route to Singapore from Jakarta, which
plunged into the Musi River on the Indonesian island of Sumatra on
December 19, 1997, killing all 104 aboard.
Air traffic controllers never received a distress call and investigators
found that the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder on the
Boeing 737-300 stopped recording minutes before the plane went down --
prompting rumours of pilot suicide.
Dittmer described Tsu as ``a fine man'' but said their relationship
became strained.
Describing the ``very disturbing'' Manado incident, Dittmer said the
airliner was flying too high and too fast on its approach. Tsu, instead
of going around to try again, rolled the plane from side to side to try
to slow it down.
``The passengers, if they were anything like me, would have been
scared,'' Dittmer said. ``I was scared.''
He said the two pilots chatted about the incident, which led to a
SilkAir disciplinary inquiry, before they boarded their next flight
together.
``He voiced his frustration at some of the rumours he'd been hearing
about his professional ability,'' Dittmer said.
He said the conversation continued on to the plane and Tsu later turned
off the cockpit voice recorder.
Tsu eventually reactivated the cockpit voice recorder but was later
demoted because of the incident.
In his third and final flight with Tsu, Dittmer said the plane was
10,000 feet higher than normal before its descent because Tsu had
programmed the flight computer incorrectly.
Senior counsel Michael Khoo, representing the families of six victims
each seeking more than the US$200,000 in compensation offered by
SilkAir, began a court hearing on Monday by painting a picture of an
aircraft that was deliberately put into a nose-dive by the pilot.
Khoo said the aim of the action was to highlight the need for closer
monitoring of safety breaches on all airlines.
``It was never the intention of the plaintiffs in this case to prove
that Captain Tsu Way Ming committed suicide,'' he said.
Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee said in a crash
report in December that the highly fragmented wreckage ``yielded no
evidence to explain the cause of the accident''.
The plaintiffs say the offer by SilkAir, a regional carrier wholly owned
by Singapore Airlines , is inadequate.
Most families have accepted the US$200,000 in compensation, which bars
them from further legal action.
Bertie the Bunyip
blowjobs:
Debby is a stupid cunt.
Bertie