SFFlyman

I have no intention of having anyone fired. My post should not affect anyone, since there was a completely full plane of passengers witnessing this. I am also considering the security issue - what if an armed security person had seen him jumping from the plane? He could have been shot by a trigger-happy cop. If the pilot condoned his actions by inaction, then perhaps this should be investigated. How many times have I heard "we are here first for your safety". If his actions did create a safety issue by disarming the slide before it was safe to do so, then what is the point of having rules for safety?

yogi

1. We don't know if the ground ops center was not answering when called by the plane, or refusing to dispatch someone to the gate.

2. How the plane ended up at a different gate would be interesting to know. Did they get wanded in and then those people walked away, assuming the jetway operator was present?
It is possible to park a plane at a gate with some accuracy without other people present, especially if you arrive at those gates several times a day.

3. No matter what rules were violated, the FA should not have "had a fit". The FA should have remained calm and dealt with it behind the scenes/post flight.

danM

Thanks for this explanation -- it's good to know exactly how this works (although it will hopefully never be "useful" information... ).

Also, thanks for the clarification from the (ex)-FA's point of view. I, at least, appreciate it (and have generally always appreciated your perspective)...

Dan

Fly

The flight attendants biggest responsibility is coverage of their assigned exit door. Had that flight attendant done anything to encourage this pilot, he would probably be facing termination right now too. Luckily, the OP made it clear that he did try to keep this from happening so his job will be secure. Had he waited until post flight, he'd probably be handing in his badge. United is very straight forward with this directive... the flight attendant is responsible for their door from the moment they step into the aircraft until they step off the aircraft. No one is to touch the door except them.

SFFlyman

The FA was doing exactly as you suggested. The pilot was standing in the galley watching the events unfold and, unlike the FA, made no attempt to stop the FO. The FA did try to stop him, but with the pilot standing there watching, he must have felt helpless to do anything.

fastair

Completely disagree. If it were a matter of opinion, sure, but safety does not wait till "behind the scenes" for appearance of disunity.

Violations of UA safety need to be delt with immediately, as in this industry, waiting till later can end up in the later never coming.

Ari

^

yogi

Maybe I should clarify. The FA should have objected, stating that this was outside of regulation and would be reported, and quickly checked with the pilot, but it all should have been done in a professional manner.

The words "had a fit" implies excess emotion and carrying on after the deed was done. Maybe the OP can give us a better discription of the interaction.

yogi

One aspect that I am not clear on, was the door closed again after the FO departed?

cmd

That's not really true. The Captain is in charge of the aircraft, no matter that some flight attendants seem to like to think otherwise. That means the Captain is in charge from the nose to the tail, including the doors (some F/A's like to think the Captain's authority stops at the cockpit door). The F/A would no more get terminated for laughing along with the Captain about this incident than for laughing about anything else the pilots decided to do with the airplane. United hammers this "don't touch the door on pain of death" thing into the F/As' heads because the company is trying to avoid accidental slide deployments. Some F/As wind up taking it way too seriously and start acting like the door has a big red label on it saying "Pull This Handle To Blow Up The Airplane And The Known Universe."

ClueByFour

It would be very interesting to know how (if) this is addressed in the FOM for United. The one the pilots carry.

At the end of the day, if it's not addressed in the FOM, than the Captain's authority (under the applicable FAR) pretty much trumps all of this idle speculation.

If this comes to a head (unlikely), ALPA will claim CA's authority under the FAR, and in all likelihood, nothing happens to the CA or FO.

Is there a wager here?

cmd

Really? Every one of them? Hmmm. I'm actually trying to think of even one. It may have been unorthodox, but I'm just wondering if you could list out the whole plethora of FARs that this incident violated. Being unorthodox doesn't make something illegal. In any case, I can guarantee that no one is going to get fired over something like this. A Flight Manager might tell the captain not to do something like this again more to avoid alarming passengers than anything else, but that would be the extent of it.

cmd

When the engines stop and the parking brake is set, that's it for the flight as far as the FAA is concerned, jetway or no jetway. Claiming those pilots are in a heap of trouble is just silly when you don't know the regulations.

SFFlyman

Regarding your question... I don't remember the exact wording, but the FA did loudly state that it was wrong for him to do that and asked him twice NOT to do it. The door was left open until a driver for the jet(bridge)(way) was found. Again, it was a matter of what is appropriate, for safety and today's heightened security requirements. An earlier post suggested that the slide could not be activated if the door is open. I do not know if this is correct, but if so, a considerable number of passengers would not have had a slide to use if there was an emergency of some sort.

JS

The probability of there being an evacuation while the plane is sitting still at the gate with the engines off such that the rear doors are unusable for egress is IMHO the same as that of a meteor striking a plane in flight (one of the theories behind TWA 800, btw).

Shall we ban all flights until we can figure out how to defend airplanes from stray meteors?

It's ludricrous to be worried about infintesimally small risks like meteors or one unarmed door of an immobile, gate-arrived 737.