lincolnjkc

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...

mfirst

what about the Rockies coach - kinda surprised we are letting him off the hook on this
probably should have known that the flight deck doors are locked for a reason?
undue "influence" to get up front?
does he allow "guest" (VIP or otherwise) in his locker room whenever?

agree - not sure this is a termination level event (especially compared to a lot of stuff we discuss here) - these pilots are selected for charters for a reason.... maybe this is the reason? ...but now, busted due to social media

nnn

One could argue the rule is arbitrary in that any rando can get behind the wheel of a Cessna by driving down to the nearest airport and asking for a lesson ... or even in a bigger plane if they can afford a non-121 charter. It seems to me this incident is more about the principle and importance of adhering to the rules that exist, as opposed to the particular increased safety risk that results from one infraction.

narvik

I didn't spell it out in my previous post, but I am suggesting that United benefited from the pilots' rule-breaking, and (at least on some level) was aware of such shenanigans going on from time to time on charter flights.
I refuse to believe that this was a one-off.

Seeing the video as presented, naturally we all agree that it's a no-no, and naturallly United can only take the actions that it did, once the video is out there.

But listening to the chatter, and watching the video though, I am convinced that it wasn't quite the isolated incident and may have happened more often than we'd like to imagine. (Likely much more so in the past than nowadays of course. Pilot might be an old-timer? Don't know.)

But it would take a lot to convince me that United wasn't/isn't aware of such things happening on charter flights.

They got snapped....time for an internal memo.

(BTW, the Aeroflot AP disengage was silent.)

physioprof

Professional sports teams allow non-team guests in the locker rooms all the time, for all kinds of reasons. This is not a useful analogy.

featheroleather

Thats why they’re called accidents, not incidents.

mfirst

physioprof - yes, like people get to go into the cockpit all the time for all sorts of reasons - but, to the point of this discussion - there are also times, for both locker rooms and cockpits - that non-mission critical people are allowed and, as such, rules exist so that pilots and coaches can say "no" when they might be potentially influenced by a DYKWIA type individual. Of course, as we are also discussing, it goes both ways - meaning, there are probably VIPs who are "allowed" access when riff-raff (like me) would not.

-m