United flight canceled after upset pilot refuses to fly

[WacoFan]

Waco,
I seriously doubt this was about a passing comment made about a hat. I could be wrong, and maybe this guy broke bad. However, I will give him the benefit of the doubt.
Unfortunately in this business, there are guys with pretty strong personalities. Things can get ugly, and the stress level among pilot groups these days are pretty high to begin with.
So it seems to me that he takes the old IMSAFE checklist that the FAA pays lip service to, and made a decision not to endanger his passengers.

(Remember the FAA does not support pilots with this, they will just crucify any who dont follow ex post facto). Read that statement from the FAA spokesperson, or here's the translation: We expect pilots to not fly if they are unsafe, but we wont lift a finger to ensure that there is no retribution for following our rules.

Here is an ironclad law of the FAA- they will not interefere in management in any company barring breaking of a FAR. The onus is on the pilot and the consequences too.

He obviously knew there would be consequences for his decision, but made his decision and according to you he doesnt belong in the left seat??????

Never said that he didn't belong in the seat per se, I said that if the issue was truly something as trivial as was stated here and other places then yes, he may not. If there was some catastrophic back-story that is one thing, but at what point do people have to draw the line? I also supported the guy calling off the flight. I guess I should have posed it more as a question: At what point should someone who does this be looked at, or would looking at him at all or having any retribution to him completely wipe out the spirit of the needed protection of calling off a flight?

 

[granlistillo]

Waco,
Sorry about that. Reading your post again I see I missed the gist of your point -my bad.

I really have strong opinions on fitness to fly issues as I see the airline industry totally lacking in a fair and safe implementation of this concept.

Way back when, Navy aviation taught a concept of compartmentalization. There were techniques used so when you went flying, you were able to concentrate on the mission at hand. And if you couldnt you didnt fly. The FAA pays lip service to fitness to fly and apart from alchohol and medication, they will not get involved. I am sure that stress and emotion calloffs could be abused.

Playing devils advocate - I am not too sure this was over a hat.

 

[WacoFan]

Waco,
Sorry about that. Reading your post again I see I missed the gist of your point -my bad.

I really have strong opinions on fitness to fly issues as I see the airline industry totally lacking in a fair and safe implementation of this concept.

Way back when, Navy aviation taught a concept of compartmentalization. There were techniques used so when you went flying, you were able to concentrate on the mission at hand. And if you couldnt you didnt fly. The FAA pays lip service to fitness to fly and apart from alchohol and medication, they will not get involved. I am sure that stress and emotion calloffs could be abused.

Playing devils advocate - I am not too sure this was over a hat.

I would find it hard to believe it was over a hat as well - has to be more to the story. Does ALPA provide any kind of course about compartmentalization? Do any airlines? Would seem to be a good addition.

 

[granlistillo]

Does ALPA provide any kind of course about compartmentalization? Do any airlines? Would seem to be a good addition.

Dunno

 

[Hacker15e]

Way back when, Navy aviation taught a concept of compartmentalization. There were techniques used so when you went flying, you were able to concentrate on the mission at hand. And if you couldnt you didnt fly. The FAA pays lip service to fitness to fly and apart from alchohol and medication, they will not get involved. I am sure that stress and emotion calloffs could be abused.

A guy with the experience level to be a Captain at UAL, I would think, would have had enough career experience to understand the concept of compartmentalization.

 

[Mavmb]

When I used to dispatch for an airline, this only happened every day!

 

[granlistillo]

A guy with the experience level to be a Captain at UAL, I would think, would have had enough career experience to understand the concept of compartmentalization.

Hacker, I am just curious-did you fly 121 before you went into the USAF? Usually it is the other way around. You seem very opinionated on everything 121. I wonder where you got this from. I've seen both sides of the coin, and trust me, the military is much more reasonable. if you got issues, you can go to skipper or your boss and say hey I need to sort some stuff out. That may not happen in the airlines. understanding compartmentalization, and having options are two different things.

 

[Hacker15e]

Hacker, I am just curious-did you fly 121 before you went into the USAF? Usually it is the other way around. You seem very opinionated on everything 121. I wonder where you got this from. I've seen both sides of the coin, and trust me, the military is much more reasonable. if you got issues, you can go to skipper or your boss and say hey I need to sort some stuff out. That may not happen in the airlines. understanding compartmentalization, and having options are two different things.

No, I have zero experience in 121 operations.

I fly in the military with a lot of guys who do both, as well as fly recreationally with a number of 121 pilots, so "how things work" there is not completely foreign to me. It is, obviously, a 2ndhand source of information.

I'm very opinionated on a lot of things. I try not to have set opinions on things I'm ignorant about, though. This is one of them.

 

[granlistillo]

Hacker,

A gentleman's response to a pointed post sir.

I often wished I had stayed military. I was a EP3E NFO and got out for family reasons (married a European) and worked in the EU for a few years in the bidness world. The grass for me has turned out not to be greener- different but not greener.

The circumstances in the airlines today leave a lot of normally calm guys a little tense. Just the uncertainty can be tough, then through in a family issue and voila... Amazing, but family separation in 121 world is as bad as deployments were in the Nav.

 

[WacoFan]

Waco,
Sorry about that. Reading your post again I see I missed the gist of your point -my bad.

I really have strong opinions on fitness to fly issues as I see the airline industry totally lacking in a fair and safe implementation of this concept.

Way back when, Navy aviation taught a concept of compartmentalization. There were techniques used so when you went flying, you were able to concentrate on the mission at hand. And if you couldnt you didnt fly. The FAA pays lip service to fitness to fly and apart from alchohol and medication, they will not get involved. I am sure that stress and emotion calloffs could be abused.

Playing devils advocate - I am not too sure this was over a hat.

Been thinking about your posts and I really may have jumped to the wrong conclusion about this guy - although I tried not to.

I like the idea of your compartmentalization course - are there any resources you can direct us to that cover this issue in a similiar way as the service? Lots of people getting into the flying game here, and that would be an excellent thing for us to know.

I also have questions about calling off a flight like this captain did. I applaud his self-awareness, but can he get called onto the carpet? A follow-up would be, should he? As discussed, a true personal tragedy or something of that magnitude is one thing (and I hope this guy didn't experience that), but at what point do superiors, either in management or the Navy or AF decide that the issue was too minor to cancel a flight or mission?

Very interesting Human-factors learning could be had with this issue - any advice you can share would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Hacker15e]

I like the idea of your compartmentalization course - are there any resources you can direct us to that cover this issue in a similiar way as the service? Lots of people getting into the flying game here, and that would be an excellent thing for us to know.

I'm not so sure that this is something that can be taught in an academic setting. The concept can obviously be taught, but it would be a pretty short 10 minutes in the classroom! It is a skill learned in practice more than anything.

but can he get called onto the carpet?

Well, that's exactly what the preceding discussion in this thread has been about -- can he and, perhaps more importantly, should he.

Like many things in aviation, opinions are divided. There is no single correct answer to the question.