DenverBrian

I know you are, my friend. I was referring to UA as a company, not to any specific individual. I hope pilots will work together to fix any processes or systems that might allow such an incident to occur again.

One of the reasons I still fly UA is because it's such an extremely safe airline. Incidents like this need to be intercepted and prevented with systemic approaches.

spin88

Thanks for posting, and I hope that she gets the held she needs.

dgdevil

Could be quite lucrative in terms of CustomerCare certs. What do you think a 1K would earn for this? [Pejorative comments edited by Moderator. ]

sinoflyer

I wish that she will receive the help that she needs.

Shame on those who wish to extrapolate this unfortunate event into an institutional problem, given that they don't even know what the story in the background is.

fragment54

People saying they hope she is fit to fly again, United would be begging for lawsuits if anything happened on one of her flights.

dgdevil

She did everyone a favor. Imagine if she had waited until the plane was 30,000 feet up in the air before she did her rant.

ChrisHaynesUSA

I came to this article here after seeing it on another website.
Seems to have been buried and not publicized very much.

One of the better comments I read over on the other website mentions that there was a time that all pilots had some sort of military training and they were stress tested and now there not as many of the pilots with military backgrounds and we see a stress episode such as losing your girlfriend or Trump winning an election being enough to trigger a career ending melt down.

.......retired Navy aircraft mechanic

halls120

I don't see her anywhere near the front of a UA or any other passenger aircraft ever again. Perhaps she could get hired by a freight hauler, but I doubt any passenger airline will take her on.

spin88

+1 I am as everyone knows, not exactly a fan of United, but this has IMHO absolutely nothing to do with United. My guess she had a medication issue, or a partial stress breakdown. In a work force of 12,000 pilots, it is going to happen statistically. I'm sure if we did some research we would find similar incidents on OALs.

I for one hope that her issue is resolved, and that it does not end her career.

javabytes

readywhenyouare

http://tribunist.com/news/united-air...?utm_source=BP

First of all, why did the gate agent let her have access to the aircraft? Valid ID or not someone claiming to be a crew member but out of uniform needs to be held for questioning and confirmation. Gate agents absolutely have the authority to deny access to anyone they find questionable.

Second of all, why did the first officer not have the captain removed? The captain will likely never fly again and need a psychiatric evaluation. But the first officer needs to be sent back to CRM training. Similar situation with have occurred in the past but the FO contacted the authorities and had the captain removed.

I hope the captain gets the help she needs but I would never want to be on a plane with her in the flight deck again. Maybe UA can move her to a desk job if she is able to undergo counseling and clear things up.

Mike Jacoubowsky

I spoke with my friend who's a pilot for one of the other major recently-merged airlines.

There is no regulation at his airline, that he knows of, that states a pilot or co-pilot has to show up in full-dress. But it would be an extraordinary situation in which that happened, and in 20+ years he's seen it happen just once, and that was to replace someone up front at the last moment and there happened to be someone flight legal in the airport, who was expecting to be a passenger, not a pilot that day.

The only place where there was an opportunity to deal with the situation ahead of time was... likely nowhere. If she'd been acting in a way that might have hinted at having been drinking, gate staff are fully allowed/empowered/required to call in security. But maybe she seemed just fine earlier, or perhaps just grumpy. Anybody can have a bad day and still be a professional up front.

But he was thinking we don't know the full story and it's likely that cabin crew did call it in and very early on there was no possibility she'd be part of that fight.

spainflyer

The updated Washington Post story based on interviews with several passengers strongly indicates that, from UA’s standpoint, this plane, this flight, and this pilot were good to go even after the ranting started. If passengers had not started to bail out, nothing would have been done.

Even after passengers began to bail – many of them in tears -- a flight attendant insisted: “She’s been cleared to fly…” If UA has a policy for these kinds of cases, I hope it was NOT being followed. But it looks more like the crew were making it up as they went.

As others have said here, a good thing the plane was still at the gate. What would have been UA’s “policy” if it were already on the runway? In the air?

MY-OTHER-BROTHER-"TED"

Well I guess if a F/A says it's O.K. to buckle up so we can get goin' it'll be alright!

NOT WITH ME OR MY FAMILY ON HER PLANE, SHE AIN'T GOOD TO GO!

NEVER GONNA HAPPEN, if I have anything to say about it.

The German pilot that flew his plane into the Alps was having marital problems also, and he was going to shrinks for years.

I don't really care if their spouses can't stand them, or in this latest case, whether Trump or Hillary were their favorite's, as it states in the article, I ain't ever flying with one of these wacked-out, nut-jobs, once they freak-out ---EVER!!!

enviroian

What a nut job. Did this just happen recently? I'm surprised it hasn't been on the news. Someone who obviously has no business behind a yoke/joystick. Her career with United is obviously over.