SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's Asiana Airlines Inc is changing its pilot training program and encouraging its crew to talk more in a bid to change a corporate culture that U.S. investigators said may have been a factor in a crash last year.
A hearing into the July 6 crash that killed three people and injured more than 180 people in San Francisco revealed that one of the pilots said he did not feel he had the authority to abort a low-speed landing as people at a "higher level" had to make that decision.
"It's a reality that within our country there is a leaning toward a patriarchal culture and many pilots work and fly within the strict military order," Chief Executive Kim Soo-cheon told reporters on Monday.
The airline has since September strengthened pilot training, set up out-of-office gatherings and recommended all members of the flight crew address each other with honorifics while working, regardless of rank, Kim said.
Yamamura Akiyoshi, senior executive vice president in charge of safety since December, added that Asiana was also seeking to encourage staff to report problems without fearing possible penalties.
Another factor highlighted in the December hearing was pilots' reliance on the autopilot to maintain airspeed. One of the pilots also said he was stressed about manually flying the plane.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the crash of the Boeing 777 aircraft is still ongoing and both Kim and Yamamura declined to give details about the probe.
Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com
NTSB Identification: DCA13MA120
Scheduled 14 CFR Part 129: Foreign operation of Asiana Airlines
Accident occurred Saturday, July 06, 2013 in San Francisco, CA
Aircraft: BOEING 777-200ER, registration: HL7742
Injuries: 3 Fatal.
This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed. NTSB investigators traveled in support of this investigation and used data obtained from various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report.
On July 6, 2013, about 1128 pacific daylight time, Asiana Airlines flight 214, a Boeing 777-200ER, registration HL7742, impacted the sea wall and subsequently the runway during landing on runway 28L at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), San Francisco, California. Of the 4 flight crewmembers, 12 flight attendants, and 291 passengers, about 182 were transported to the hospital with injuries and 3 passengers were fatally injured. The airplane was destroyed by impact forces and postcrash fire. The regularly scheduled passenger flight was operating under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 129 between Incheon International Airport, Seoul, South Korea, and SFO. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident.
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