Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Singapore Airlines poor saftey record, an unsafe airline

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Would you trust your life with flying Singapore Airlines. I would not. It is not just the number of major crashes with heavy fatalities, it is also the nature of these crashes which is worrying.

On Oct 31, 2000 a Singapore Airlines 747 crashed on to construction equipment on attempting a take off at Taipei Airport bound for Los Angeles. The tower had cleared it for takeoff at Runway 05 Left, but the captain mistakenly entered into 05 right, thinking it was 05 left and despite every condition indicating that he should exercise extreme caution, simply took off without checking. The errors were far too many and serious making this crash not just a simple mistake of judgement, it borders almost on recklessness.

First the charts clearly showed there were 2 runways parallel to each other 05 left and 05 right. If he was not sure where he was, how could he just endanger the lives of his passengers and crew without making sure where he was.

Second there was heavy rain in Typhoon conditions and visibility was minimal. Since he could not really see, should he not have exercised even greater caution to make sure where he was. Or even better aborted the take off entirely for inclement weather, as a safe pilot would have done?

The wrong runway into which he turned 05right, had green lights in the center line with no lights on the sides clearly indicating that it is not a runaway but only taxiway. Why did he not see this.

The aircraft cockpit display would have had a Para visual Display which would have shown that he was not lined up with his allotted runway. He did not check this.

Runway lights have white light in the center line and on the sides. Not seeing this he should have known that he was not on it.

This Singapore Airline pilot simply decided to take off anyway, not caring where he was putting the lives of his passengers at risk, which resulted in heavy casualties and serious injury.

Some years later, Silk Air, the sister airline to Singapore had an even more shocking accident. The pilot of a Boeing 737 deliberately pitched his nose down, pointing to the terrain below and deliberately crashed the aircraft killing all aboard. He has committed suicide.

And only last month, a Singapore Airlines from Manchester veered off the runway into the grass while landing in Munich even though all indications were that the weather was fine, it wasn't a Cross wind landing and there were no other difficulties whatsoever, which leads us to believe in this case the pilot was simply incompetent.

And why I would ask any reader of this blog to be wary about ever flying Singapore airlines is this. It is not really the number of accidents but more importantly the type of accidents which is worrying in this case. Unlike in other cases where the accident is caused by the aircraft malfunctioning, with Singapore Airlines it is either pilot recklessness, pilot committing suicide or pure incompetence.

In the Taipei crash the pilot almost showed complete reckless disregard in pouring rain and took off at the wrong runway. In the Silkair case, the suicide pilot did not care that he is killing dozens of his passengers in his suicide act. And in the Munich case recently, which trained pilot in the world would be expected to veer off a runway in perfectly good weather with a perfect headwind, or in other words ideal conditions, unless he is a mental case.

No no. If I were you I would not fly Singapore Airlines. Quantas is a much better bet which uses normal trained pilots who do not go around committing suicide, or take off from the wrong runway or decide to use the grass as a runway at Munich.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/

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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it's very unfair to base this article on three isolated events. Just because one pilot committed suicide under Singapore Airlines does not mean all SIA want to play suicide. This is exactly the drivel that comes from the gutter press. Very poor.

Gopalan Nair said...

To Harry Scoffin,
I am not sure that everyone would agree that this is drivel, especially when it comes to danger to your life and limb as is the case in air travel.

Merely because one pilot killed himself does nto mean that everyone else is suicidal. But even one pilot behaving in this way is bad enough for me not to travel Singapore because I simply do not want to take that risk to my life.

The only other case I have ever heard of this sort of bizarre behaviour among pilots was Egypt Air flight from New York Cairo.

After that incident Egypt Air lost a tremendous amount of passengers. No suprise.

You simply don't want to risk your life with an airline that employs suicides, if deliberately taking off from the wrong runway is not bad enough.

Jinny Jim said...

I agree with you GN.
I mean is it not prudent to be on the safe side esp where your own life is concerned. I mean why would I as a passenger want to be as reckless as the pilots.
I avoid some airlines because I know they are no better than some "pirate" taxicabs.

Anonymous said...

An extract from:

The Straits Times
Wednesday, November 23rd,2011.
Page B3 (home section)

"Every day, 4 or 5 people attempt suicide,at least one succeeds........................."

Is the Singapore P.A.P Government driving its people to commit suicide?

Anonymous said...

That's not Harry Scoffin.
It's Harry Lee (Kuan Yew) in drag.

Anonymous said...

Wow, you should see how SIA shares is going downhill. It is really suicidal like the Singaporeans. Blame themselves for getting into this whole mess! They chose to believe the self-made Singapore God! Good grief!

News of the World said...

To Harry who use the word "Unfair", you are probably living in your 1% Singapore expat kingdom.

You have a long way to go before you can become a good journalist. Hopefully, when you learn to look beneath the mask of Singapore, your impression of "sexy" Singapore will change by then.

Who makes a good journalist?
"Evil prevails when Good people fail to act."

Anonymous said...

Singapore Airlines wrote in their Facebook page about an hour ago:

[quote]Singapore Airlines would like to inform customers that our website is currently experiencing some technical difficulties. Our web team is looking to resolve the issue. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.[/quote]

This problem has persisted for months. Their loyal customers are slowly and steadily switching to competitors such as Emirates, Cathay Pacific or low-cost carriers, causing their profits plummeting by more than 90%. This is 'the true colours of an airline who pride itself as "A great way to fly". Now with this website issue, we can deliver the final nail in the coffin of the world's "greatest" airline.

MAJULAH SINGAPURA!!!! THAT'S PROOF OF THE INCOMPETENCE OF SINGAPORE AIRLINES!!

Anonymous said...

SHUTUP GUYS. WHY ONLY TALK ABOUT SIA?! SO MANY OTHER AIRLINES WITH EVEN WORSE SAFETY RECORDS THAN SIA. IN FACT SIA IS 4TH! BLOODY IDIOTS. SINGAPORE AIRLINES IS ONE OF THE BEST AIRLINES IN THE WORLD. WITH ITS GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE AND IN FLIGHT SERVICES. SINGAPORE AIRLINES OBVIOUSLY IS GOOD

Anonymous said...

The above must have come from a jealous neighbor who's not been doing so well recently.