News / Atlas Air crash that killed three crew was down to pilot error, says NTSB

The three deaths in the Atlas Air crash last year have been blamed on pilot error and the Federal Aviation Administration’s failure to create a central database, which would help carriers see a pilot’s bad track record.

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released its findings yesterday, which revealed that the first officer had an “inappropriate response” to an “inadvertant activation of the aircraft’s go-around mode”.

The board said it resulted in “spatial disorientation that led him to place the airplane ...