Missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft fuels safety debate

Aviation experts and airline officials were on Sunday left mystified by the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER, which vanished off radars an hour after take-off.

The airline was cruising at 35,000 feet at last contact. There were no recorded distress signals.

A search over more than 30 hours yielded no traces of any debris, fuelling speculation of foul play or terrorism; two passengers were travelling on stolen passports.

Air France parallel Aviation experts drew parallels with the disappearance of Air France Flight 447, an Airbus 330 that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in June 2009.

It took two years for the wreckage to be located.

That crash was initially thought to have been caused by an extreme thunderstorm.

However, later investigations suggested that ice may have caused errors in sensor readings.

A pilot error that forced the aircraft into a stall compounded the aircraft’s problems.

“In the Air France crash, there were two co-pilots in the cockpit who wouldn’t have had the experience to handle the weather,” Captain Mohan Ranganathan, a former airline instructor pilot and air-safety expert, told Business Line .

Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370, a Boeing 777-200ER, was piloted by an experienced Malaysian Captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah (53), with 18,365 hours flying experience.

First officer Fariq Hamid (27) was relatively inexperienced, clocking 2,763 hours but only recently making the transition from narrow to wide-body aircraft.

Last July, Asiana Airlines Flight 214, a Boeing 777, crashed on approach to San Francisco airport.

That incident was linked to pilot inexperience and a case of “a new convert from Airbus to the Boeing 777”, Capt. Ranganathan said, adding that the investigation was ongoing. Another Boeing 777-200ER, British Airways Flight 38, crash-landed in 2008 at London Heathrow.

The accident was blamed on ice crystals forming in the fuel.

However, Capt. Ranganathan pointed out the Boeing 777-200ER, an aircraft popular with both pilots and passengers, is “very safe”.

“Heathrow was due to icing in the engine. Boeing carried out a few modifications with the Rolls Royce engine,” he said.

There were, at the same time, lessons to be drawn, primarily from the Asiana and Air France cases, with regard to ensuring pilots were well trained to handle any adverse situations.

Indian scene “In India, experience levels are far too low for a first officer, domestic or international, requiring just 200 hours on a piston engine aircraft,” he said.

“Overseas, a pilot won’t be given command of a wide-body aircraft unless he has 5,000 hours. In India, it is 2,500 hours. So, you can have a situation where you have a 2,500-hour pilot and a 200-hour co-pilot in charge.”

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