PILOTS TRAINED TO RELY ON INSTRUMENTS
Mr John Tan, lead professional officer of aviation management at the Institution of Engineers Singapore, said the report contains no “conclusive evidence” of a hardware failure.
He said pilots are trained to rely on their instruments, not just visual observation.
“This is probably a situation where they don’t actually have timely information to make a correct decision … they don’t have enough clear warning of what was actually the weather risk ahead,” he said.
“This is different from saying that the pilot made a straightforward error, or one of the hardware components had definitely failed.”
Transport analyst Terence Fan from Singapore Management University agreed, noting that it is difficult for pilots to monitor all conditions across a long flight.
