aviation
After a long pandemic: Qantas pilots sometimes make fatal mistakes
Qantas is reactivating several wide-body jets of the type Airbus A380 and has announced that it will use them to fly the route from Sydney to Los Angeles from January 10th.
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Forgotten brakes and confusion about altitude and speed: Two years of the corona pandemic and the associated drastic reduction in air traffic have left their mark – also in the experience of pilots.
Australian media reported on Wednesday about an internal report by the airline Qantas, which reveals that pilots sometimes make fatal errors after long breaks in flights.
As the newspapers “Sydney Morning Herald” and “Melbourne’s Age” reported, it happened, among other things, that pilots forgot to release the parking brakes during take-off and upset the altitude and speed of the aircraft.
It also happened that switches in the cockpit were in the wrong position and external inspections of the machine before take-off were not concentrated. Routine tasks that had previously been carried out with minimal effort now sometimes require more time and thus impair attention, the internal letter warned .
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The sometimes long breaks for the pilots due to the corona pandemic led to less up-to-date flight experience and thus to a reduced “cognitive ability” of the staff.
A spokeswoman for Qantas said that airlines worldwide are now facing the “complex process of returning to pre-Corona times”. This also includes getting pilots who have been on the ground back to work. Qantas quickly realized that special reintegration programs were necessary and initiated them. “Safety is our top priority,” she affirmed.
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