Taiwan's Civil Aviation Administration on Wednesday immediately suspended 10 TransAsia pilots who failed an oral proficiency test on how to handle emergency situations, authorities said.
The airline is under intense scrutiny after a crash in Taipei last week - the carrier's second in less than a year - killed 42 of the 58 passengers and crew onboard Flight GE235, a turboprop ATR 72-600. Fifteen survived; one is still missing as rescue teams continue to comb the river bed where the plane crashed.
The CAA is feeling the pressure from the international aviation community in the wake of the tragedy, particularly since the crash played out for the entire world to see - dashcam video from a car showed the aircraft banking sharply over a row of buildings, turning vertical, its wing clipping a taxi cab on a bridge, then the bridge itself, before crashing into a shallow river.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the design features on the ATR-72 Turboprop might have helped save lives. The plane, designed to fly at slower speeds than a conventional jet engine, was also designed to float for a sea landing and built to equally distribute shock, the paper noted.
Audio from the cockpit indicated that control tower officials lost contact with the plane four minutes after takeoff. The pilot's last audio transmission was "Mayday! Mayday! Engine flameout!" Authorities now believe pilot error might have played a role in the disaster, as a preliminary investigation revealed the pilot mistakenly shut off the other, still-working engine.
That prompted the CAA to begin giving the tests on emergency protocol.
The 10 pilots who failed the oral part of the exam will undergo retraining. TransAsia Airlines said each pilot had experience of an average of 6,900 flight hours.
All pilots will still have to pass the other part of the exam when they are tested on a simulator.
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