Comments:Pilots in 16-death crash jailed for praying instead of flying

Back to article

This page is for commentary on the news. If you wish to point out a problem in the article (e.g. factual error, etc), please use its regular collaboration page instead. Comments on this page do not need to adhere to the Neutral Point of View policy. You should sign your comments by adding ~~~~ to the end of your message. Please remain on topic. Though there are very few rules governing what can be said here, civil discussion and polite sparring make our comments pages a fun and friendly place. Please think of this when posting.

Quick hints for new commentators:

• Use colons to indent a response to someone else's remarks
• Always sign your comments by putting --~~~~ at the end
• You can edit a section by using the edit link to the right of the section heading

Click here to add a new comment · Add onto existing comments

Comment

Should they lose their jobs? Absolutely. Should they be jailed? Of course not. What good does that do anyone? 173.27.52.171 16:19, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Religion is idiocy.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 96.28.37.53 (talk • contribs)

Perhaps so, but is panic a crime? Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 07:42, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Depends on if you're flying a passenger jet or not. Ennen (talk) 10:12, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure if we were in that situation, we would panic too. Sometimes fear can completely overwhelm people. Don't get me wrong, they should have tried to save the plane and it's passengers. I don't believe they should be jailed for panicking and letting their fear overwhelm them, though. Papercutbiology (talk) 10:52, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Their incompetence, and blind reliance on magic powers, cost lives. As far as I'm concerned, that's negligent homicide. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.215.55.157 (talk • contribs) 19:57, 21 April 2009

Educated Human Being (Pilots)

After read the news, i felt so embarrassed on these two pilots. They should be punished because they are educated people who shouldnt depend on their praying when there is emergency. IF m not mistaken during their cadet training, they had tought by their superior how to take immediate action when there is a emergency calls and not just close your eyes and pray for the god help. Hope this kind of things wont happen anymore. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.24.190.170 (talk) 07:49, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

about the crash

It's saddening to know that the two pilots did not do anything but somehow it becomes impressive on my part beacuse at least they know their faith and that in bad times, they knew that prayers could save them. my condolensces to those familes who lost a family member in the crash. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 124.107.218.239 (talk • contribs) 10:11, 25 March 2009

If that were true they should have prayed for the other people not themselves, otherwise they weren't being very good Christians/Jews/Muslims/whatever they were and God wouldn't have given a crap, ne? -Victor Sheckels 173.27.52.171 11:14, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I am suprised to see how both the people who convicted these pilots and everyone who has commented so far display a complete lack of familiarity with the official report into this accident.

When the plane ran out of fuel, the pilots did not know because they had an incorrect fuel indication. So what did they do? Instead of focusing on gliding, they tried to restart the engines. That is what ANY pilot would do! The problem was, doing that decreased the distance the plane could glide. There was no way for them to know that it was impossible to restart the engines. The plane had to ditch because the pilots were doing what they were supposed to, NOT because they were yelling "God save us!" -Chuckstar, 28 November, 2013

O-M-G(osh)

I have mixed feelings towards this article. This is by far one of the most controversial articles I have seen. Although it was wrong of them to let 16 people die, seriously, I want YOU to think about this: If you had engine failure in a plane, flying extremely fast and knowing you're going to have to crash the plane and most likely you're going to die, never see your family again or the light of day, wouldn't you be praying to? I mean, sure, you should have learned in training that blah blah learn to crash a plane properly blah blah blah in case of engine failure blah blah blah. You're in the middle of nowhere and now you have to crash a plane with nowhere to formerly land. And now, you are in the cockpit with lives of both the passengers and yourselves in your hands, what do you do? Well, you're all going to die anyways, so pray. It makes sense. If it doesn't, then go to church and learn to appreciate life. They go to jail for their faith. Who knows, maybe their prayers allowed them to live. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.169.135.238 (talk) 12:50, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

You get on with the training you've been given. They survived to be prosecuted - perhaps if they'd not wasted time praying to some nonexistent God they could have brought the plane down in a way that saved more lives. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:24, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I feel mixed feeling like many people do. If I were in the situation of the pilots I would have paniced too but I don't know if I would have just given up. The pilots should have at least tried to bring the plane safely down. The pilots paniced and prayed to God to save them, that just spells out GIVING UP. I feel so sorry for the passengers, we put alot of power in the pilots hands every time we get onto a plane, we expect them to fly us safely to our destination and if there ever is an accident to do what they are suppose to do. And as for their imprisonment, I do not agree. I think they should have just been fired from their jobs and should have never been aloud to fly planes ever again. Putting them to prision because they paniced and gave up sounds more like revenge than justice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.176.171.19 (talk) 15:50, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Just shows that religion is complete rubbish and should not be relied upon at any time

Religion is untrust worthy and rubbish as proved here —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.12.64.152 (talk • contribs) 09:45, 26 March 2009

All you saying Religion is wrong or "rubbish", I feel bad for you. You're all going to burn in Hell when you die and have a painful time in eternity. Yeah, but it's okay, you'll be with all the other European athiest assholes that smack down God. Have a great life knowing that. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 168.169.194.150 (talk • contribs) 12:24, 26 March 2009

Knowing what? That I don't believe a damn thing you said? As an athiest, I don't BELIEVE in hell, and thus, obviously can't believe I'm going to end up there. Your cruel, oh-so-christian threats lose all their "divine" power, and that scares you, I know. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.215.55.157 (talk • contribs) 20:01, 21 April 2009

The same reason why we oh-so depend on presidents to help our countries. Papercutbiology (talk) 13:37, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Professional action by pilots

You can hear the whole of the crash dialogue from the black box at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZSGw51ZkmA Apart from understandibly "Oh God" and "God help us", it would seem that the pilots acted professionally at all times. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.100.250.230 (talk) 14:30, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

"Pilots in 16-death crash jailed for praying instead of flying" The headline says it all. The jailers made the right choice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.103.191.187 (talk) 21:44, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

they did not give up thats why they are still alive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdAgu38K0Mo&feature=related —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rebeldawg (talk • contribs) 14:47, 23 April 2010

Why not charge them with murder

They should get life in prison for murder —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 96.224.137.92 (talk • contribs) 01:07, 24 April 2009

justice fachiste —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 41.224.184.225 (talk • contribs) 11:51, 20 September 2009

But they did not have any negative/bad intentions. They were highly destressed. They expected the engines to restart. (I also watched Mayday S08E07 — Falling Fast) However, they should really have been gliding at V_BG instead of hoping and praying. Every pilot should do that. ––S536870912 (talk) 13:46, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

not true

the pilot and copilot acted by the book and i challenge whoever posted this article to prove me wrong. the damn plane ran out of fuel over the mediterranean sea. they were professional till the end trying to save the plane and the passengers and of course themselves. they never gave up and if you think they did and prayed instead ur a moran. besides how you explain the fact that they both survived along most of the passengers. in an emergency like that ull be wishing u have them in charge when ur several thousand feet above ground. and lets see if you dont pray to God when ur about to hit the drink and die. talking about giving and praying go listen to black boxes recordings all over the web and see the panic and the crying of the pilots when they know they about to die... well they humans too, no blame but ur a moran. here's a link to the black box recording http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdAgu38K0Mo&feature=related —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rebeldawg (talk • contribs) 14:36, 23 April 2010

Your writing is so shite that I gave up trying to read the whole thing you wrote there, but in response to your challenge to disprove the notion that the pilots were competent I must decline. The article does not make any comment, merely reports the fact that the court judged the pilots to be incompent. Your challenge would be better directed at the prosecution. My understanding is that bail was granted pending an appeal; I don't know what became of that but the Italian "justice" system is painfuly slow so it may still be pending. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 15:47, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

??????????????????????????

they shuld not have been jailed. Only the mechanics should. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 124.183.172.100 (talk • contribs) 07:06, 28 July 2011

Many uneducated judgements being made!

Firstly before passing opinion on this based on a few media reports you should look into the crash in a actual detail. You can listen to the CVR recording on YouTube and there is also an episode of Air Crash Investigation on the accident. These pilots didn't just give up and start praying. They asked God for help, that's help for everyone on the plane. Whilst saying these few words they were doing their jobs. They were faced with a situation that based on the information they had was confusing and they made the decision 99% of other pilots would of made and that was to try and re start the engines. The incorrect fuel reading lead them to believe this was possible and because they spent their time trying this option the planes propellers where not set back for optimal gluiding distance. The incident was re created on a simulator and 1 pilot running the simulator made it to land the other crashed a mile short, the simulation was undertaken with the knowledge that the engines couldn't be restarted and without any distress caused by the situation. I think that shows this plane was going down in the water no matter who was piloting it. These pilots acted professionally. The reason the pilot was jailed was the incident based around the refuelling. Before the flight he couldn't find a refuelling slip in the cock pit, he made the assumption the plane had been refuelled because it was showing max on the fuel gage and thought the previous pilot must have accidentally kept the refuelling slip. Now this was wrong by the pilot, had he questioned this issue more then there could of been a chance someone might of worked out there were issues with the fuel level reading. He was not jailed because he simply asked for Gods help! I'll add as well that Italy is know for being strict and unfair with these incidents. The runway collision at Milano Linate in 2001, the air traffic controller was jailed and the crash investigator stated that the air traffic controller was the final victim of that accident. Although he made some wrong decisions he was in no way to blame. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.120.146.192 (talk • contribs) 04:28, 11 December 2015

Glide

If an engine failure happens, I would always glide at V_BG, which is the most efficient gliding speed (highest glide ratio). ——S536870912 (talk) 13:28, 5 March 2016 (UTC)