Kaprawi: Disciplinary action taken against crew of plane that skidded off runway

KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia has issued warning letters to the crew of Flight AK6443 which skidded off the runway at the Kota Baru Airport on Nov 1.
Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Aziz Kaprawi (pix) said the budget airline had already taken disciplinary action against the crew responsible for the mishap and the pilots have been temporarily suspended by the Department of Civil Aviation Malaysia (DCA).
"The flight failed to turn completely when the left tyre and the front of the flight was out of the left side of the runway. The captain then had to turn off the engine and all passengers were asked to disembark and were transferred to the terminal," he said in response to Senator Khairiah Mohamed at the Dewan Negara today.
He explained that some of the main contributing factors to the incident were the failure of the captain to use the aircraft's landing lights which would have helped in terms of better vision to perform the manoeuvre.
"The turning technique used by the captain was also not according to the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) where the full tiller input should have been used to reduce the radius of the turn. Instead, the captain only used 50-75% of the full tiller input," he said.