San Francisco: The pilots of the Asiana jet that crashed here Saturday believed that they had set the auto throttles, devices that can control the engines to maintain safe airspeed, but speed fell to unsafe levels anyway, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.
Investigators in the cockpit of the wreckage found the auto -throttle switches set to the “armed” position, meaning that the auto-throttle could have been engaged, depending on various other settings, she said. The disclosure is far from conclusive, but raises the clear possibility that there was a mechanical failure or that the crew misunderstood the automated system it was using.
The chairwoman, Deborah A.P. Hersman, also said that interviews with the three pilots who were in the cockpit at the time of impact showed that the speed indicator on the flat-panel displays in the cockpit had drifted down into a crosshatched area, meaning that the instruments were saying that the plane was moving too slowly.
10/07/13 Matthew L. Wald/Boston Globe
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Investigators in the cockpit of the wreckage found the auto -throttle switches set to the “armed” position, meaning that the auto-throttle could have been engaged, depending on various other settings, she said. The disclosure is far from conclusive, but raises the clear possibility that there was a mechanical failure or that the crew misunderstood the automated system it was using.
The chairwoman, Deborah A.P. Hersman, also said that interviews with the three pilots who were in the cockpit at the time of impact showed that the speed indicator on the flat-panel displays in the cockpit had drifted down into a crosshatched area, meaning that the instruments were saying that the plane was moving too slowly.
10/07/13 Matthew L. Wald/Boston Globe
