An Italian court has sentenced a Muslim pilot, Chafik Garbi, who, in the midst of an emergency landing, stopped to pray rather than taking emergency measures. The accident about the ATR prop aircraft resulted in 16 deaths in Sicily.
He was convicted of manslaughter.
The fuel gauge installed on the aircraft was not for that particular model, resulting in the plane running out of gas in midair.
To the shock of the passengers, when the gas cut out, Chafik Barbi, a Tunisian, broke into prayer rather than taking steps to prepare the aircraft for the emergency landing. He has been sentenced to jail for 10 years along with his co-pilot.
Five employees of Tuninter were sentenced to between eight and nine years in jail by the court.
This may be a good argument for an only-atheist pilot policy for some passengers. There is something to say for having a pilot who has nothing to look forward to in a crash situation.
Some pilots, however, have defended the men –saying that they were flying the aircraft the whole time and that accounts by the BBC and others is misleading.
Better listen to black box then spend time on writing bullsh**t. He flew the plane until the end with wrong fuel knowledge (mistake of the engineers not the capitain). How would you behave if you have 1800 kg of fuel in your plane? Would you try to restart the engines or close them and make yourself a huge glider while knowing that 1800 kg is in your wings? I would do the first option, as cpt. Gharbi did. He tried to restart engines in order to fly the plane as he knew that there is a fuel (as the indicator showed him). If he did gliding try and he crash the plane and then investigators saw that he had 1800 kg of fuel they would jail him for 20 yrs for not restarting the engines. In my opinion he did all perfect according to the rules and to the flying instruments. He saved lives which might have been lost as well. According to the recording I can’t hear loud prayers, panic or any other thing. Co-pilot was extremely calm until the end, cpt. Gharbi said ‘In the name of God’ 2 or 3 times, in the last seconds (not 5 mins as press revealed). About atheist pilots…. You think atheists won’t panic? 🙂 Many of them pray even louder while dying, as then they remembers about God, so I won’t be sure that it’s a good idea to employ only atheists. It’s important to employ good pilots, no matter for their religion or skin color. Regards.
Cracking article…
This surely makes great sense to anyone
I saw the full thing on the net by the National Geographic plus heard the actual recording of the black box. It is simply amazing to see comments on this site and others that only listen to the part that the pilot was praying. It shows that there is real hate for muslims (I am christian). Do you really think that a seasoned ex-air force pilot closed his eyes, got off his seat and started praying with a Coran on his hand leaving his copilot to deal with it. What sort of conversation should you have in a falling plane “Spok, we are going down, it was a pleasure working with such professional staff like you, bye” or maybe it would have been ok if he had said “what the %/&%#k” a hundred times.
The pilot assumed he had fuel and had an engine malfunction and did not have any idea that it was low fuel, probably did not think he would make it, saw some boats and directed the plane towards them. His faith in God had nothing to do with the crash, on the contrary, his last second maneuvers avoided the plane from collapsing completely which saved many lives. His only sin was that he never lost hope. Now he is sentenced to 10 years in prison for having said oh my god please save us more than once rather than remaining silent and await his doom. Mad world.
Atleast his life was saved….dosent that mean God answered his prayers?