Oops...stuck mic houston center

I'd rather fly with a bigot, than a scab....it's one thing to open your face and spew idiocy, and quite another to be so short sighted and selfish to put your own career and others at jeopardy...you see I can tell someone to shut their pie hole, but the stench of a scab is forever.

How about flying with neither?
 
I am just curious, havent read all 10 pages of this thread, but how are they going to prove who this pilot was? Maybe I missed that part...
 
He forgot to say "that was not me" afterwards.

Either that or look for someone who flew out of Chicago with a 11 out of 12 gay F/As.

I can guess by why was it in the best interest to forgive the CAL scabs?
 
First off, I don't think we should judge this man by what he said in that stuck mike rant. When you regularly do 5+ hour flights, unless you're a complete dork, you're going to at some point in your career find yourself in a situation where you've let your guard down while conversing with the other pilot next to you, and you've just said something inappropriate. It doesn't make you a bigot or a homophobe or anything like that. Its not unreasonable for someone to think offcolor jokes or politically incorrect rants or things like that can be funny under the right context. You all have to realize that this rant wasn't prepared and given by this pilot, it was taken out of context and transmitted by accident. The guy who said those embarrassing things should issue a public apology to the flight SW flight attendants, then back to normal. It'll probably help his game too. Chicks really dig it when men make apologies that appear to be genuine. :p

I reside in Houston, and I'm still hearing this story on the local news.:deadhorse:(This icon might evoke strong condemnation from animal right's groups, but I'm using it anyway.)

I kinda did a role reversal of the situation to speculate what would have happened had the "pilot" been a female talking about lack of eligible "bachelors" she could date as a "professional" female. After all, a woman's dating pool in the industry, as a captain would be what. . .

1. Men who make less money than she does. After all, she's a captain for Southwest. A "male" right seater probably makes significantly less than she.
2. "Down low" flight attendant males, married males both FA and pilots vying for her affections. Gay females as well.

Would the same vilifying of a woman be made if the same "stuck mike" incident occurred? After all, we do have women in the cockpit. I'm sure conversations are similar. FA also have those conversations amongst their peers. This pilot isn't a spokesperson for the airlines, so I'm a little annoyed why groups are making such a big deal about the unsuccessful dating habits of one singular person. There certainly are larger issues to focus. . .or have I missed something here?
 
Side bar for Doug.

Anyone from the SPCA ask you to remove this icon? :deadhorse:

What about this group? :bandit: (Is that weed?)

. . .or this? :argue:

OK, let me put the caveat here to appease the thin skinned.:sarcasm::sarcasm:
 
so I'm a little annoyed why groups are making such a big deal about the unsuccessful dating habits of one singular person. There certainly are larger issues to focus. . .or have I missed something here?

As a pilot our conduct is expected to be as exemplary as those of Politicians and Priests. Maybe that's a bad comparison. But based on the fact that we potentially hold so many lives in our hands, we are expected to be flawless. I doubt there are many professions as scrutinized as ours.

His biggest offense is the stuck mike. The broadcasting of his dating habits is the least of his offense, unless you are his wife. The thing that really is going to get him in continued trouble is his bigotry and disrespect for his coworkers, although I am sure sensitivity training has cured him of this. I imagine the public shock though of the fact he can go off like this while flying the plane, who's flying the plane while this is going on. The public has no idea what it takes to fly a plane. I was shocked at how layed back the cockpit is in cruise, my first time up there. It's kind of like hanging out at your favorite bar, minus the drinks.
 
How do you fail to see the absurdity of questioning whether he's a bigot when he used bigoted slurs? I'm sorry, but if you use the "n word," you're a racist. Likewise, if you use anti-gay slurs, then you're a bigot. It's really pretty simple.


Some African Americans use the N word. are they racist?
 
Some African Americans use the N word. are they racist?

I also had a ramper call me a Cracker the other day in EWR, is he racist? I see that you also started calling women Tea baggers in this thread Tony, aren't you kind of contradicting yourself by doing that, come on off your high horse now...

I agree this guy maybe shouldn't be talking like that in the cockpit, but we all know it happens, even between FAs in their jumpseats. I think SWA handled the situation correctly and did a great job of ignoring all the press too. The guys deserves some punishment but surely not on the level of being fired. IMHO it is all about intent. When we put a murderer on trial, if it is found that there was no premeditated intent to kill another human being, they get a lesser sentence. I think the same applies here. Its not like he went up to one of the gay flight attendants and said,"You are a ..., I hate ..., drop dead......." There was no personal attack and he was simply speaking his mind. Allbeit it may have been a conversation more suited for the hotel bar than the cockpit.

On a side note, as I said before I think it is sickening that the news media is hunting this guy down. The purpose of this news story is to incite anger in others over this issue. I wonder if the dummies running the story stopped and thought about the fact that showing pictures and video of the guys house and neighborhood, as well as interviewing neighbors could put this guys family, as well as his neighbors in danger. Just a thought.


As for the scab comments, I commute out of BNA with a lot of CAL guys. A couple are asses but most are super nice guys. I was sitting in the terminal a few months ago waiting for my flight to work and there was another CAL captain there waiting on another flight. I had met him before but never really talked so I said hi and we began talking about hunting, the outdoors, flying, families, and what we were going to plant in our gardens come spring time. After a few minutes of very enjoyable conversation another CAL guy I know walks around the corner for the same flight I am going on. I say hi and continue talking to the other guy until he goes to the bathroom a couple minutes later. At that point I got up and started talking to the 2nd CAL captain that had walked up. After a few words he says, I think that guys a Scab, whats his name? I tell him and he confirms that he is in fact one of the CAL scabs. Talk about an awkward situation, am I supposed to avoid talking to the guy now or what? I remove my self by pretending to go get something to eat for the next 15 minutes until its time to go. I know a couple of other CAL fos who have flown with said scab capt and think he is a great guy as I do though. Not excusing his actions 20 years ago but still.

I have also ridden on the jumpseat before on a 3 hour flight and not heard a single word exchanged between Captain and FO, Come to find out, Capt's a scab. I think there are definitely still some bad attitudes at CAL but not enough to worry about being a safety issue all over the system.
 
At that point I got up and started talking to the 2nd CAL captain that had walked up. After a few words he says, I think that guys a Scab, whats his name? I tell him and he confirms that he is in fact one of the CAL scabs. Talk about an awkward situation, am I supposed to avoid talking to the guy now or what? I remove my self by pretending to go get something to eat for the next 15 minutes until its time to go. I know a couple of other CAL fos who have flown with said scab capt and think he is a great guy as I do though. Not excusing his actions 20 years ago but still.

Those guys were brought back "into good standing" by the union. Why should you excuse or not excuse anything regards it? Point is, it shouldnt matter, even to the other CAL pilot.

I have also ridden on the jumpseat before on a 3 hour flight and not heard a single word exchanged between Captain and FO, Come to find out, Capt's a scab. I think there are definitely still some bad attitudes at CAL but not enough to worry about being a safety issue all over the system.

Same thing as above.

Only flightdeck I've been on that was that cold was a NWA 727, where everyone was from a different clan.
 
Those guys were brought back "into good standing" by the union. Why should you excuse or not excuse anything regards it? Point is, it shouldnt matter, even to the other CAL pilot.


Same thing as above.

Only flightdeck I've been on that was that cold was a NWA 727, where everyone was from a different clan.
I know I am still friends with the guy and enjoy talking to him. Don't hold anything against him either. Was just pointing out that I know what he did when he crossed the line wasn't right.
 
I know I am still friends with the guy and enjoy talking to him. Don't hold anything against him either. Was just pointing out that I know what he did when he crossed the line wasn't right.

Oh I know. I was just piggy-backing that these guys being in a supposed-"forgiven" status, shouldn't be getting any animosity.......one would think.
 
As a pilot our conduct is expected to be as exemplary as those of Politicians and Priests. Maybe that's a bad comparison. But based on the fact that we potentially hold so many lives in our hands, we are expected to be flawless. I doubt there are many professions as scrutinized as ours.

His biggest offense is the stuck mike. The broadcasting of his dating habits is the least of his offense, unless you are his wife. The thing that really is going to get him in continued trouble is his bigotry and disrespect for his coworkers, although I am sure sensitivity training has cured him of this. I imagine the public shock though of the fact he can go off like this while flying the plane, who's flying the plane while this is going on. The public has no idea what it takes to fly a plane. I was shocked at how layed back the cockpit is in cruise, my first time up there. It's kind of like hanging out at your favorite bar, minus the drinks.

. . .and I understand and concur with "most" of what you said. . .I do hold pilots to exacting/flawless standards. . .while flying the airplane. There are in fact "lulls" during the enroute phase of flight that will allow a pilot the time to multi-task between flying and having a conversation. As you said, his perception of his company's hiring practices are just that. . .his perceptions.

If anything, he should receive an education about dating within the confines of the company. . .Not always a good practice; apparent to me from his conversation he should extend his dating pool/range to another airline. . .or go work someplace else.
 
Lets not pretend though that these kinds of conversations don't go on in many cockpits quite often. This guy just got the stroke of bad luck.

I don't work on a plane but these conversations DO NOT go on in my place of employment.

One would be fired in short order.
 
I DO find myself tapping the microphone when it gets a little quiet on the ATC freq now. :)
 
What's amazing to me is this story came out 3 months after the fact. "Pilot uses offensive language" is news? You should hear some of the things I've heard around the FBO on a Saturday morning.
 
We're held to a weird standard.

A city bus driver gets pulled over and there are a stack of nudie magazines in the passenger seat, no one cares.

A school bus driver gets pulled over and there are a stack of nudie magazines in the passenger seat, and if it's reported, he's going to eventually be fired even though it's completely legal to possess "Juggs" magazine.

"School bus driver, perhaps the one that drives your darling child to school every day, busted with oodles of pornography. Catch the story after the wacky sports guy creates narrative out of sports statistics and the fat guy talks about how hot it's going to be tomorrow"

Then the school board, or whoever, is going to be under external pressure to get the "perv" suspended, fired and sent to (bah!) sex rehab or something.

I think in the pilot's situation, he was more unlucky than he was unprofessional. But on the managerial side, it's always most convenient to quickly wash your hands of the issue than endure a high profile debate which is why I know Southernjets would have probably canned me.
 
Substitute merc C-123 pilot for city bus driver, and Southernjets A330 international Captain for school bus driver, and you have the aviation theme to your analogy.
 
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