An Alaska Airlines 737 pilot who asked not to be named said the Dutch report suggests the faulty altimeter started a sequence of events to which the pilots reacted too late. Pilots have to be aware that instruments sometimes fail, he said, and they must know how to detect and handle that.
"In a low-visibility landing, with any kind of input that says things are not normal, typically that crew should [abort the landing] and figure out what's going on," the pilot said. "These airplanes are landing at 175 miles per hour, and you can be down to 600 feet of visibility. At that speed, there's not much room for error."
The black box of the Turkish Airlines plane provided investigators with data covering its past eight flights. The data showed that the faulty altimeter problem had occurred twice previously in similar situations, just before landing.
It's unclear if there was any documentation of those incidents by the airline, or if they were even noticed at the time.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/boeingaerospace/2008815049_737crash05.html
"In a low-visibility landing, with any kind of input that says things are not normal, typically that crew should [abort the landing] and figure out what's going on," the pilot said. "These airplanes are landing at 175 miles per hour, and you can be down to 600 feet of visibility. At that speed, there's not much room for error."
The black box of the Turkish Airlines plane provided investigators with data covering its past eight flights. The data showed that the faulty altimeter problem had occurred twice previously in similar situations, just before landing.
It's unclear if there was any documentation of those incidents by the airline, or if they were even noticed at the time.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/boeingaerospace/2008815049_737crash05.html