South Korea Orders Review of Pilots After Jet Incident
The nation has ordered the review of qualifications for all of the pilots of Airbus A320 passenger jets.
South Korea announced it will review the qualifications of all the pilots of Airbus A320 passenger jets flown by carriers based in the country, one day after an airplane skidded off a runway while landing at Hiroshima Airport in Japan.
Twenty-five people had minor injuries in the accident on Tuesday, according to the South Korean carrier Asiana Airlines. The Airbus A320, operated by Asiana, approached the runway so low that it clipped a 20-foot-tall wireless communication tower that stood almost 1,000 feet before the runway. Asiana also operated the jet that crashed July 6, 2013, while trying to land at San Francisco International Airport. The National Transportation Safety Board's report on that crash is available here.
According to a New York Times report, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport called in the top managers of all South Korean airline companies to instruct them to bolster airplane maintenance and pilot training. It also told reporters that it would conduct a review of all Airbus A320 pilots for job suitability, especially checking their ability to deal with emergencies.
Yeo Hyung-ku, vice minister for transport, said that airline companies needed to consider the mental state of pilots as a potential cause of an accident, in an apparent reference to the pilot at the controls of the Germanwings jetliner that crashed into the French Alps last month, according to the report.