Praying Pilot Gets 10 Years for Fatal Crash

A pilot who appealed to Allah instead of taking emergency measures has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in a crash that killed 16 people, the Guardian reports. When the plane's engines stopped, the Tunisian pilot panicked, prayed and crash-landed in the sea when he should have tried to glide to a nearby airport, the Italian court was told.

The co-pilot was sentenced to 10 years for manslaughter in the 2005 crash. Five other employees, including maintenance workers who installed the wrong fuel gauge, received terms of up to 9 years. The pilot's lawyer described her client as "a broken man" who was "convinced he did everything possible to save as many lives as possible."
(More plane crash stories.)