Turkish Airlines Crashed Due to Faulty Altimeter

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The Turkish Airlines flight that crashed last week, killing nine people, close to the Amsterdam airport is said by authorities to have had a faulty altimeter, which shut down the engine. They said that similar shutdowns occurred two other times with the same plane, and the pilots overruled them. Turkish Airlines warned Boeing, the maker of the aircraft, and other carriers that use the B737 to be aware of the issue.

When the aircraft was at about 1,950 feet, the left radio altimeter indicated that the plane was flying at -8 feet, which prompted the automatic pilot to cut off the engines, according to the Dutch safety board. Pieter van Vollenhoven, the Head of the Dutch safety board, said that the crew didn’t initially react to the events. When an alarm sounded that the speed of the plane would fall below the minimum, the pilot reacted, reigniting the engines. However, Vollenhoven said that the aircraft was too low to the ground, only 492 feet, and they crashed only one kilometer from the runway.

Boeing says that they are issuing a reminder to all of the operators of the B737 that they need to monitor primary flight instruments carefully during the critical parts of a flight. The black box of the plane, which registers 25 hours of time flying and covered eight flights on this aircraft, showed that the problem happened two other times during landings as well.

Vollenhoven said that they are focused on the investigation of the malfunctioning radio altimeter, as well as its consequences. It will take longer to find out if a different reaction could have been taken or not, he added.

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