Taiwan pilot in February TransAsia crash described as hasty

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A pilot described by colleagues as nervous and hasty mistakenly throttled down a still-running engine following a glitch with the other engine in an airline crash that killed 43 people in Taiwan in February, flight safety officials said Thursday.

A preliminary investigation after the Feb. 4 crash of TransAsia flight GE235 already had indicated that the pilot shut off the remaining engine after one of them went idle.

[...] the account Thursday by Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council — while not assigning blame — added additional details about the crash and the background of the pilot, including that he had failed a flight simulator test as recently as May 2014.

Minutes after takeoff in Taipei, a ribbon-like sensor connector in the automated flight system failed and put one engine into a mode that effectively cut its power to the aircraft, Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council Executive Director Thomas Wang told a news conference.

Video captured on dashboard cameras showed the plane flying on its side over an elevated road, clipping a fence, light pole and passing taxi shortly before plunging into the Keelung River in a heavily populated part of Taipei.