News Digest

Taiwan pilot in February TransAsia crash described as hasty

A pilot described by colleagues as nervous and hasty mistakenly throttled down a still-running engine following a glitch with the other engine in an airline crash that killed 43 people in Taiwan in February, flight safety officials said Thursday. A preliminary investigation into the Feb. 4 crash of TransAsia flight GE235 already had indicated that the pilot shut off the remaining engine after one of them went idle. But the account Thursday by Taiwan’s Aviation Safety Council — while not assigning blame — added additional details about the crash and the background of the pilot, including that he had failed a flight simulator test as recently as May 2014.

If engine two has flamed out, you would shut off engine two, that’s normal logic.

Taiwan’s Aviation Safety Council Executive Director Thomas Wang

The flight was carrying 53 passengers, three crew members and two flight attendants. Fifteen people escaped the aircraft alive. Another domestic TransAsia flight crashed on July 23 last year, killing 48 people aboard. TransAsia said Thursday it has improved pilot training and the company’s organization since the February crash. The Aviation Safety Council anticipates finishing a full investigation on the February crash by April 2016.