Civil Aviation Resources Network News on May 15, 2024: On May 14, the blogger "Rotten Rabbit" posted a message on the short video platform saying that the flight MU742 of China Eastern Airlines from Bangkok, Thailand to Kunming, Yunnan Province on the 13th was missed, and the reason was that "the captain was missing". As soon as the video was released, it immediately aroused heated discussions among netizens.
In this regard, on the evening of May 14, the official account of China Eastern Airlines responded in the comment area of "Rotten Rabbit": The news of the loss of contact with the crew on the Internet is untrue, because the plane taken by the thunderstorm in Bangkok was diverted to Phnom Penh when performing the previous flight, and waited for the weather to improve and re-arrived in Bangkok, so the original flight crew overtimed. In order to ensure aviation safety, the company decided to replace the local backup crew to carry out the flight. During this period, the ground traffic in Bangkok was severely congested, resulting in the new crew arriving at the airport late.
What is a crew timeout?
Xu Lingjie, an expert from the Civil Aviation Resources Network and a professor at the Civil Aviation Flight University of China, said that due to weather delays and crew overtime, China Eastern Airlines is legal and compliant to replace the backup crew to carry out flights in accordance with regulations.
The so-called crew overtime, simply put, means that the crew's continuous duty has exceeded the statutory duty time, and the flight must be replaced, which is mandatory by law.
In order to strictly ensure the safety of flight transport operations, each flight crew has a fixed number of hours, and those exceeding this number are considered overtime and must go to rest. Crew overtime can easily cause flight fatigue and bring great risks to flight safety.
According to Part 121 of the "Rules for the Qualification of the Operation of Public Air Transport Carriers for Large Aircraft", the flight duty period refers to the period of time from the time when the crew members report to the designated place to complete the mission after accepting the flight mission arranged by the certificate holder, and to the time when the engine of the aircraft is turned off after the last flight and the crew members have no intention of moving the aircraft again.
The regulations have strict regulations on the flight time and flight duty period of the crew.
The flight MU742 flew from Bangkok to Kunming, and its preceding flight from Kunming to Bangkok MU741 was affected by the thunderstorm at Bangkok Airport, flight MU741 was diverted to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and arrived in Bangkok after a delay of 4 hours.
If the crew continues to operate the return flight, they will inevitably face overtime and will need to change the crew.
Expert: There is a right to accountability
In addition, "Rotten Bunny" also mentioned in the comment area, "It's your own broadcast that said the loss of contact, and the crew traffic jam caused so many people to delay time, why don't you talk about compensation?" ”
In this regard, China Eastern Airlines also explained, "Hello, Dongdong listened carefully to the broadcast of the on-site staff, and the original words were: 'Because the pilot has not yet arrived, ......it is not that the pilot is missing, and the crew does not want to experience traffic jams, and there is a big jam in Bangkok that day." ”
Some netizens pointed out this: This incident is a standard self-media rumor-mongering.
Xu Lingjie said that the poster deliberately spread false information, and if it is suspected of infringing on the reputation of China Eastern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines has the right to hold it responsible. At the same time, there will be no compensation for the delay caused by the replacement of the unit after the weather conditions.