Originally Posted by
narvik
Can't help but think that these pilots who now [rightly] got punished by United spent many years being ambassadors for United by making the charter experience great for the entities paying for the service. They likely made United millions and millions by ensuring repeat customers/contracts.
And to compare this incidence to the Aeroflot one? Puleeze!
Something tells me a United pilot would notice if the autopilot got disengaged, and knows what to do if it were.
Risk management is largely about taking the chance out of things. Yes, the AP disconnect chime is loud and annoying -- partially because of incidents like Areoflot -- and the pilots may be great ambassadors, this may be the only thing they've ever screwed but this is also a well known and non negotiable (at least in flight) rule that anyone working for an airline -- crew or not -- should be well aware of.
It doesn't matter if nothing bad happened this time, or the flight wasn't a regular passenger flight, or that some crews on other carriers had mental health episodes despite vetting. I could be a perfect employee and there are a number of rules that have wiggle room or room for judgement (e.g. the Captain's emergency authority) but there are also non-negotiables, and for the negotiables the probability of ex post facto review. And if I toe over a non negotiable it doesn't matter that I make the company 5x my fully loaded costs, clients love me, and my contributions account for about 2/3 of total revenue -- I would have a price to pay.
There is a non-zero chance I'll be allowed to visit the flight deck on s special widebody inflight. I'd love this, but one of my first questions when it was discussed was "will it get anyone in trouble?" (The answer was 'no, since we operate these under part 91').
Now is that price "off with their heads"? That's a bit more nuanced...and without having employment and other history not something that I'm comfortable proclaiming...