Tuninter Crash Pilots Get 10-Year Jail Sentence

By: Jeff Apter

March 24, 2009
Accidents, Air Transport and Cargo

A court in Palermo, Sicily, has sentenced Capt. Shafik Al Gharbi and copilot Ali Kebaier Lassoued to 10 years in prison for failing to take adequate emergency measures before crash landing their Tuninter ATR 72 turboprop into the sea, leading to the death of 16 people on Aug. 6, 2005. Five other employees of the Tunisian domestic airline and charter company received sentences of between eight and nine years in jail.

The court said Al Gharbi and Lassoued prayed instead of trying to land the airplane while on Tuninter Flight 1153 from Bari, Italy, to Djerba, Tunisia. The ATR 72 ran out of fuel midflight following the mistaken installation of an ATR 42 fuel gauge. Although the crew did not detect the increasing fuel exhaustion, the court found the pilot had panicked and lost time in praying out loud instead of following emergency procedures.

The aircraft’s right engine failed at 23,000 feet and the left engine at 7,000 feet, after which the turboprop glided for 16 minutes before crashing 23 nm northeast of Palermo.

The Italian government banned Tuninter from flying into Italian airspace on Sept. 7, 2005, despite the fact that it had operated 95,000 previous flights without incident. The airline rebranded itself as Sevenair and launched scheduled flights into Italy in 2007.

Back

Details of Roush Crash Released September 01, 2010 The NTSB has released the ­preliminary report on the crash of a Hawker Beechcraft Premier IA during the EAA AirVenture show in Oshkosh, Wis. ... [more]
Judge Refuses To Hear Midair Witnesses September 01, 2010 The criminal trial of the American pilots of the Legacy jet that collided with a Boeing 737 over the Amazon in 2006 moved forward this month... [more]
Embraer Forecasts Climb in Airliner Demand September 01, 2010 The size of the 30- to 120-seat airliner fleet will grow by 81 percent over the next 20 years, from 4,285 airplanes last year to 7,780 in 2029,... [more]
Stevens crash investigation under way September 01, 2010 The investigation continues into the cause of last month’s crash of a de Havilland Canada DHC-3T Otter turboprop-conversion floatplane in Alaska... [more]
Premier Crashes at AirVenture September 01, 2010 AirVenture 2010 was blessed with few accidents. The replica Sikorsky S-38 amphibian Osa’s Ark suffered a collapsed landing gear on Runway 18/36,... [more]