Chinese Pilot awarded for his bravery
Source: travelerstoday.com, 06 November 2016
A Chinese pilot has been awarded three million Yuan ($444,000) for his swift thinking that saved 439 lives.
The captain of an Airbus A320 avoided a head-on crash with another plane on the same runway at Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport .The Airbus A320 was taking off at a speed of more than 240 kilometers per hour from Shanghai for Tianjin when China Eastern Airlines’ pilot He Chao spotted another aircraft, a second China Eastern Airlines plane – an Airbus A330-300 incoming from Beijing, on the runway when at shock, he had no alternative but to speed up and fly over it. The petrifying incident took place on runway 36L at Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport at 12:04pm on October 11.
An investigation into the incident found that the two airplanes came within 19 meters (62 feet) of each other at Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport.
Reports recommend there were a total of 413 passengers and 26 crew members on board the two planes.
The close call has been compared to the 1977 Tenerife Airport adversity, the deadliest aviation accident of all time, in which 583 people were killed after two Boeing 747s collided.
The China Eastern Airlines pilot has been considered a hero. He Chao, a veteran captain of the Shanghai-based airline, has also been taken as an “advanced party member”, an honor given to a select few for their achievements, news portal ThePaper.cn reported. The plane’s crew members were awarded 600,000 Yuan between them, the report said.
China’s Civil Aviation Administration suggested that the control centre and the crew members of the A330, which crossed on front of Chao’s plane, failed to develop proper communication due to errors by air traffic controllers. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) did a simulation of the incident during their investigation last month. The authority has revoked the licenses of two air traffic controllers who are taken as responsible for the incident and punished 13 air traffic control officials from The Eastern China Air Control Bureau.
