Tunisian pilot who prayed as his plane went down jailed in Italy

[kskiska]

Source: The Guardian

A pilot accused of praying when he should have been taking emergency measures to avoid a crash in which 16 people died has been sentenced to 10 years in jail by an Italian court.

Captain Chafik Gharby was at the controls of a plane belonging to the Tunisian charter airline Tuninter that crashed in the sea off the coast of Sicily four years ago. The 23 survivors were left swimming for their lives, some clinging to a piece of the fuselage that stayed afloat after the turbo-prop aircraft broke up on impact.

Gharby was at first hailed as a hero for having saved the lives of most of the passengers. But after an investigation, he, his co-pilot, and several Tuninter executives and technicians were charged with a range of offences including manslaughter.

(snip)

The judges accepted the prosecution case that the pilots, instead of making a crash landing on the sea, should have been able to glide the plane to Palermo airport. Instead, Gharby was said to have panicked. In cockpit recordings entered as evidence he was heard calling for the help of "Allah and Muhammad his prophet".

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/25/tunisian-plane-crash-pilot-prayed

[countmyvote4real]

1. Oh dear. This is very complicated. n/t

[EstoniaKat]

10. Not really

The dude should fly the plane.

[countmyvote4real]

14. You're right. n/t

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. No comment - I think everyone knows what I would say about this! nt

[DUlover2909]

3. Is prayer included in a pilot's training manual?

[Dr.Phool]

5. None that I ever read.

The closest I've ever seen is for emergency landing at night. "After establishing a glide, turn on the landing light. If you don't like what you see, turn it off".

[Codeine]

4. There are none more ignorant and useless,

than they that seek answers on their knees, with their eyes closed. - Anon.

[Tab]

6. I agree with the first responder

This is complicated.

However, I think immediate intervention should trump religiious views. You can pray all you want, but if god doesn't respond within 15 seconds, you're dead anyway.

[Tab]

7. I agree with the first responder

This is complicated.

However, I think immediate intervention should trump religiious views. You can pray all you want, but if god doesn't respond within 15 seconds, you're dead anyway.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

8. ...giving new meaning to "a wing and a prayer"

Of course, being current on his aircraft's emergency procedures might have helped --

[CJCRANE]

9. Sully Sullenberger didn't stop to pray.

On edit: the article indicates the pilot was shouting out in panic, I don't think that qualifies as "praying" - the title might be misleading.

[sofa king]

11. What's the problem? Obviously the prayers were heard.

If everyone else had got down and prayed to Moe and Llarry, they'd be alive, too.

[Regret My New Name]

12. I don't get the prayer thing...

I mean, is it any different than pilot saying "Oh God, help us..."? I'm not religious, but in such a situation I could see how I could have something slip out like that. Also, that being said wouldn't prevent someone from doing their job. However, it does sound the pilot made some errors and didn't take the best action(from the way the article makes it sound), but that's nothing to do with the fact the guy "prayed"....

Really, unless the pilot left the controls and stop everything so that he could pray, then I don't see how it's relevant... Of course the judge who made the ruling had a more complete view, and I'm basing my opinion only on the limit information in the article.

[sofa king]

13. In that case, most pilots appear to worship the God "Shit."

As in "oh, shit!"

The most frequent last words I have heard on cockpit voice-recorder tapes are, 'Oh Shit,' said with about that much emotion. There's no panic, no scream, it's a sort of resignation: we've done everything we can, I can't think of anything else to do and this is it.

— Frank McDermott, partner in McDermott Associates, specialists in cockpit voice recorders.

http://www.skygod.com/quotes/lastwords.html