Please.
If this is true; these punks need to be charged with murder.
I tell ya what. I want manual overides on stuff like cars and planes.
We all knew this day would eventually come......
Probably an infected personal thumb drive introduced into the system. I’d hate to think the land based computer was linked to a network of other computers (other than those on the aircraft).
EL PAÍS had a similar article yesterday...
As confirmed by this article, “The aircraft had already attempted an earlier departure, which the pilot had aborted after noticing excessive temperature in an air intake. A series of technical faults, including retracted flaps and inoperative alarms, is believed to have triggered the tragedy.”
Victims of Spanair crash say they are “abandoned by authorities”
Two years on, families of 154 dead remember Barajas tragedy
JOSÉ A. HERNÁNDEZ ANA MARCOS
The association of victims of Spanair flight JK 5022, which crashed in Madrid on August 20, 2008, paid tribute on Friday to the 154 people who died in Spain’s worst airline accident in 25 years.
Two memorial services were held, one at Barajas airport and another in the Canary Islands, where the flight was headed and where many of the victims lived.
Besides honoring their dead, relatives also complained about delays in the court investigation, which they attribute to a lack of technical means and a lack of effective action by the attorney’s office.
“A chill in the soul” is how some association members described the disappointment they feel in the way the investigation into the accident is being handled. Others talked about “loneliness” and being “abandoned by the institutions.”
Following the heartfelt tribute to the 154 victims, association chairwoman Pilar Vera and other members of the board called a press conference to request more institutional support in their “calvary” and criticize the oblivion that they have fallen into.
“Following the parade of authorities [after the accident], a week later we were all alone,” said Vera. “A chill got into our souls, but despite thatwe will continue to fight.”
But Vera reserved her harshest criticism for the attorney, whom she said has spent very little time on the case, while praising the investigating judge, Juan David Pérez, who is exclusively dedicated to it. She also noted that the fact there are 70 lawyers involved means that the process is constantly delayed.
To illustrate the slow going, Vera said that two years after the crash, the judge is still waiting for the expert report on the causes of the accident, which took place a few seconds after takeoff from Barajas. The aircraft had already attempted an earlier departure, which the pilot had aborted after noticing excessive temperature in an air intake. A series of technical faults, including retracted flaps and inoperative alarms, is believed to have triggered the tragedy.
The Spanair computer that kept track of technical failures in the company’s aircraft was infected with viruses at the time of the tragic crash of Flight JK 5022 two years ago on Friday, according to an internal report.
The computer, which is located at the airline’s base in Palma de Mallorca, sets off an alarm on the monitor when it encounters three similar glitches in the same airplane. The aircraft that crashed shortly after takeoff in Barajas on August 20, 2008, killing 154, had three technical failures that were not recorded in time in the computer.
An internal company report, dated the day of the accident, indicates that the computer was infected with Trojan viruses, malicious programs that can damage the machine and leave it open to hacker attacks.
The accident’s victims association wants the investigating judge to ask Spanair for a list of all the incidents recorded in the computer in the days before and after the accident. The magistrate has agreed to their petition.
Additionally, it took Spanair around 24 hours to note its aircrafts’ technical failures in the computer’s files, as two airline mechanics have admitted in court. It is likely that Flight JK 5022 would not have taken off at all had its technical sheet been up to date.
Somebody went to a lot of trouble to leave out that the plane was a McDonnell Douglas MD-82. I Googled the crash (Flight Number) and really had to search to find the type of aircraft.
ping
To paraphrase the immortal words of Rahm Emanuel:
“Never let an opportunity to bash Microsoft go to waste”