Budget carrier Skymark Airlines' failure to uphold the fundamentals of airline safety were underlined by the transport ministry. After a three-week inspection of Skymark's operations, the ministry on April 6 issued a warning, ordering it to rectify 12 safety-related problems. The airline submitted its safety improvement plan a week later.
The unusually long inspection was prompted by a number of incidents, such as a failure to supply the autopilot system with the correct altitude data, and crew members posing for photographs in the cockpit mid-flight.
The autopilot data failure, which occurred during a flight on March 11, caused an airliner to fly at an altitude of some 5,800 meters instead of the 4,000 meters requested by air control.