Issue about Aircraft Maintenance
Turkish Airlines was accused of failing to perform necessary procedures in aircraft maintenance a week before the accident happened. The Turkish Civil Aviation Union even published an announcement on its website, saying that Turkish Airlines “is ignoring the most basic function of flight safety, which is plane maintenance services.”
Turkish Airlines executives and officials from Turkey’s Transportation Ministry said the last inspection on the Boeing 737-800 was on December 22.
Passengers and Survivors
Onboard the plane were 134 people (127 passengers and seven crew members) who came from at least nine different countries. Among them were seven Americans, 3 Britons, and one person each from Germany, Finland, Bulgaria, Italy, and Taiwan. Most of the passengers were Turkish and Dutch nationals.
According to Theo Weterings, mayor of the nearby town of Haarlemmereer, 63 of the 121 survivors examined by medics were being treated. Six of them were still in critical condition.
Engine Trouble
Investigations are still ongoing, although Turkish officials have already ruled out weather conditions as a cause of the crash. Pieter Van Vollenhoven, head of the Dutch Safety Authority, which investigates the cause of the crash, said analysis of the plane’s flight data recorders in Paris are expected to be completed this Friday.
But he said his agency probably won’t be making a preliminary finding until next week. Right now, evidence is pointing towards the possibility of the plane’s engines having stalled, which caused it to fall almost directly from the sky.
Fleet Safety and Fleet Monitoring
As with any country in the world, fleet safety is an important issue in the United States. While flying is the safest way to travel, a plane accident, particularly a plane crash, often becomes a tragedy.
Some airline companies, though, take the safer road by educating themselves with a Fleet Safety Program that helps them avoid injury, property damage, as well as costs related to fuel, repair and maintenance. Others take the extra mile by implementing a
Fleet Monitoring Program that reduces the tendency of aggressive and abusive driving of company vehicles.
