The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) yesterday confirmed that 29 pilots of TransAsia Airways’ ATR 72 series aircraft are to be grounded for failing an operations re-examination mandated by the administration or failing to take the test in time.
The retest order was issued after TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 — an ATR 72-600 — crashed into the Keelung River in Taipei on Wednesday last week, killing 42 people aboard the plane and injuring 15 others.
Search teams were still looking for one victim as of press time last night.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
The airline has 68 pilots who fly the aircraft.
CAA Director-General Lin Tyh-ming (林志明) said that 49 airline employees took the retest between Saturday and Tuesday, with 10 failing.
Lin said that 19 others who did not take the test are to be considered ineligible for flight assignments.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
According to the agency, eight of the 19 who missed the test are still in training. Four are taking part in annual training and four were on leave.
Lin said that three of the 10 who failed the test are pilots and seven are copilots, adding that the test showed that they needed to be more adept in enforcing procedures during emergency situations.
The test results would affect about 40 percent of TransAsia’s daily passenger capacity, Lin added.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Jian-yu (陳建宇) said that the airline has been asked to use its Airbus 320 or Airbus 321 aircraft for domestic flights during the Lunar New Year holiday.
During the peak days of the holiday, Chen said that the CAA plans to coordinate with Uni Air (立榮航空) and Mandarin Airlines (華信) in case additional flights are needed.
Chen said that the ministry could also activate backup plans to transport passengers, including requesting the Ministry of National Defense to dispatch its C-130 military transport aircraft.
The Taiwan Railway Administration will also increase the number of trains heading to the east coast, he said.
TransAsia Airways president Fred Wu (吳滬生) said that the test results were unacceptable.
He said that the airline will submit a plan to enhance the training of the pilots to the CAA, adding that it would finish all the required training based on the timeline laid out in the plan.
Wu added that pilots passing the first-stage of re-examination would soon undergo training with flight simulators.
Wu added that the company has invited flight safety experts from overseas to inspect its operations and to offer suggestions to improve flight safety.
The first group is scheduled to arrive on March 2, he said.
The entire consultation process could take between six months and one year, he said.
TransAsia would also inform the government about any new measures it intended to undertake to improve flight safety, Wu added.
The company said the average number of flight hours among the 10 pilots who failed the test was 6,905.52.
In other developments, the airline yesterday announced that each family of a person killed in the crash would receive NT$14.9 million (US$470,000) in compensation.
Because some of the families did not agree to this amount at the settlement conference yesterday, the company said that it would continue to communicate with them.
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