Air China will fire pilots in e-cigarette smoking fiasco

Air China will fire pilots of an aircraft that plummeted 25,000 feet in 10 minutes, after the state aviation regulator said that one of them had smoked an e-cigarette and made an error that forced the plane’s emergency descent on Tuesday. “After an investigation to verify the incident, the decision is to suspend the related crew from flying and terminate the contracts in accordance with the law. The crew members who are responsible for the incident have been seriously dealt with,” the airline said Friday. Its statement, issued on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo, also recommended that the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) revoke the pilots’ licences after completing their own investigations. The CAAC earlier said it had launched a full investigation into the incident involving flight CA106, which left Hong Kong International Airport on Tuesday evening for Dalian, carrying 153 passengers and nine crew members. CAAC, which seized the aircraft’s flight data and voice recorders and interviewed crew members, said preliminary investigations found that the co-pilot had, without telling the pilot, tried to turn off a circulation fan to prevent e-cigarette smoke from reaching the cabin. “[But the co-pilot] mistakenly switched off the air-conditioning unit that was next to it, resulting in insufficient oxygen in the cabin and an altitude warning,” said Qiao Yibin, of the authority’s safety office.<br/>