US 728 PHL-LHR returns to Philly due to unruly passenger

I actually follow Mark on this one. They didn't have it in themselves to get this passenger to LHR, but were willing to fly all the way back to PHL and overfly numerous other airports. I don't see a conspiracy, but I just don't get pressing on back to PHL but not pressing to LHR. That's like saying you're too sick to work and then get some stuff done around the house instead of resting, which is what you should be doing.
 
I think it would be a lot more efficient if airplane manufacturers just started installing a lav with a drop away trap door.
 
BobDDuck said:
Per my friend in their ops center, it was due to the fact that the crew wouldn't have the duty time to go back out if they diverted somewhere else so they came back to get a reserve crew on the plane.
#qualifiedopinion
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Odd.

I figure if I'm over BGR and we've got a disruptive passenger, I think the feds would question my decision about turning around to return to JFK instead of 'nearest suitable'. Unless the passenger wasn't a threat to air safety. But then, if he wasn't a threat, why did you turn around? Is a non-compliant passenger essentially a threat or an annoyance?

I know a crew that the Feds violated for having a passenger situation onboard and overflying XYZ to return to their departure station. Dispatch said it was kosher to return, but the FAA interpreted the situation as "nearest suitable".

Having started down the Feds at the big brown desk in Georgia, I'd hate to see the expression on the POI's face if I said, "With my concurrence, we agreed to overfly a number of nearer suitable airports because of the convenience of crew scheduling".

There are times under ETOPS that we may have a situation that we'll overfly the nearest airport, because a more distant airport is more suitable - like if you have a cardiac situation, and you land at Goose (I think) it'll just be you, a runway and a couple guys peering at you from the tower with binoculars and you're hours away from a medical facility, or just a few minutes more and be at St. Johns with a facility on-field. I may have those mixed up.

Just thinking out loud here.
 
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I think it's St Johns that doesn't have any facilities. What do I know though, all I do is the ACC and DKR flights. There it's either Bermuda, Lajes, or Sal Verde.
 
e6bflyer said:
How about the authority of the pic to do whatever he deems the right call? Airline captains get paid to make decisions, not because they are better pilots. He/she obviously weighed all the info and went back to phl. End of story.
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Exactly. Unfortunately as Seggy points out the Feds are here to second guess everything. That's how they get their stripes. God it must be nice never be wrong, never the guy making the tough call....
 
US Airways has so many flight to Boston - they could have got the reserve crew in and up to Boston by the time everything was sorted and the plane was ready to depart.
 
This happened with my fiancé about 4 years ago going from PHL-FCO. Airplane had an engine vibration around Nantucket and instead of diverting to nearest suitable, they diverted back to PHL so the flight could be re-crewed.
 
I_Money said:
US Airways has so many flight to Boston - they could have got the reserve crew in and up to Boston by the time everything was sorted and the plane was ready to depart.
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Right but chances are a) by 10pm at night (when this happened) there wasn't another flight Boston that night and b) when you add in the amount of duty time it would take to get a crew to show, deadhead them to Boston, preflight and setup the plane and then fly it, they probably wouldn't have been legal either.
 
The PIC is the ultimate authority on the aircraft. But that ultimate authority doesn't preclude the FAA from deciding otherwise at a hearing.

Get this, and this is where it gets cray-cray. If your captain makes a decision, which is the final decision, and he is wrong, if you've got a PIC type rating, know it's in violation of the FARS or good judgement, they FAA will whack your pee-pee and they will dangle "disregard of the FARS" as "careless and reckless" which is not a violatable offense, but a revokable offense.

Of course, a story better left for "over beers" and not splayed across social media.

#beenthere

#donethat
 
I guess the question you have to ask is if you consider a drunk (and apparently horny) passenger, that has been detained by two air marshals and restrained in a seat, an immediate security risk? I say no, and I have no problem with the crew making a decision that would be more convenient for both the airline and the passengers. We aren't talking about a mechanical issue or a passenger that tried to hijack a plan. We are talking about a dude who was drunk and was unruly who was detained by trained law enforcement, who I'm sure gave their opinion of the situation to the flight crew.

Let's compare this situation to other examples that did not divert.

http://nypost.com/2013/06/17/passen...r-telling-crew-he-poisoned-everyone-on-board/

In the case above, a United flight continued for 6 hours after passengers detained the suspect.

http://www.foxnews.mobi/quickPage.html?page=17315&content=29443286&pageNum=-1

In the case above, the Delta crew continued to DTW even after the passenger "barricaded himself in the plane's bathroom for an hour."

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/...enger_arrested_afte.html#incart_river_default

Finally, in this example, the crew continued to its destination after the crew "was later told that the passenger had either fallen asleep or passed out."

Now, I'm not saying that the crews above should have diverted, but I consider those situations to be worse than the Airways situation, which again, had the suspect detained by official law enforcement officers.
 
tiredcfi said:
How does that work? Do you have to just stand there next to the brown desk and take it like a man?
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h886E1CE2
 
tiredcfi said:
How does that work? Do you have to just stand there next to the brown desk and take it like a man?
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It's scary. The POI screams at you with the fervor of a old south minister and he's tapping his fingers on every bit of your airmen record, from the very first third class student pilot certificate/medical, through all of your 8710's, records, everything and he's very clear about the precipitousness of the situation which brought you there.

Your life is about to become molten hell. You can't breath, the air gets sucked out of the room, you pick up a "stutter" out of the blue and it's reminiscent of the "Say what again!" scene from "Pulp Fiction".

I would lovingly face my chief pilot about a decision rather than the FAA, any day.

Don't mess.
 
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