Jet Airways fires pilots who fought on flight, left cockpit unattended

[HiFlyer 9,359]

7 minutes ago, ahsmatt7 said:

I would expect a captain to take control of the situation. That means getting the FO out if the cockpit if it's gotten to a seriously bad point....at that point, it's an emergency.

So, what would you do, exactly?

Short of confrontation?

As of now, I kind of feel that most comments are in the line of "Show some balls and toss in some testosterone" But that could be me. So I'm asking for some concrete steps.

[757FO 143]

We dont know what happened in the cockpit, but regardless, it is not OK for a crew member to get physical and slap his/her coworker (call me old fashion, but a man hitting a woman is a show of cowardliness), specially while being airborne. As a captain, I understand some of the comments about leadership and de-escalation tactics, but you never know how things are going to turn based on what the situation is. Unfortunately the world of aviation is not safe to abuse in the work place, I can think of a few times getting in the cockpit with a captain being quite disrespectful because I was a junior FO, but we all deal with situations differently, and without being there to witness what really took place between these 2, I am having a hard time "judging" the Captain's actions. Bottom line is , the F.O slapped his captain, and left the cockpit unattended, these are unprofessional behaviors....

John.

[ahsmatt7 1,199]

16 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

So, what would you do, exactly?

Short of confrontation?

As of now, I kind of feel that most comments are in the line of "Show some balls and toss in some testosterone" But that could be me. So I'm asking for some concrete steps.

I honestly feel it is a huge "swallow your pride" moment.

Fighting back is just going to make things worse. I'm sure we agree on that.

For me,....

I would take the slap in the face ask a simple "was that necessary?" 

I'm sure he would habe something to say about it.

Then I would not say anything back and what it oi t a few minutes. This would be extremely hard because of any ego but it's what needs to be done.

Then I would go into damage control mode.

I would ask what I did to offend this guy and then apologize no matter if he's flat out wrong. 

For me personally, I have found out that a lot of people just want to be heard when they do things like this. The best thing is to do whatever you can to let it run its course hoping it will all calm down.

It takes a huge amount of humility to literally turn the other cheek in these types of situations. However, you have to be bigger than yourself for a minute and realize thst you may have to sacrifice every ounce of respect for yourself in order to get a plane this size and with this many people to the ground safely. It takes a ton of humility, an amount thst most people don't have.

All this can be said if the captain was the one beating up on the FO. 

There's always a time and a place for things. If I'm getting assaulted on the flight deck, im not going to get emotional and try to fix things there. I'm going to wait on the ground and go through the proper avenues such as law enforemcent or whatever I have at my disposal. 

We gotta think big picture here. Bigger than ourselves and our egos. 

If it doesn't, then as a super last resort, get other crewmembers to get him out of the cockpit. This is a super super last resort. 

[ahsmatt7 1,199]

4 minutes ago, 757FO said:

We dont know what happened in the cockpit, but regardless, it is not OK for a crew member to get physical and slap his/her coworker (call me old fashion, but a man hitting a woman is a show of cowardliness), specially while being airborne. As a captain, I understand some of the comments about leadership and de-escalation tactics, but you never know how things are going to turn based on what the situation is. Unfortunately the world of aviation is not safe to abuse in the work place, I can think of a few times getting in the cockpit with a captain being quite disrespectful because I was a junior FO, but we all deal with situations differently, and without being there to witness what really took place between these 2, I am having a hard time "judging" the Captain's actions. Bottom line is , the F.O slapped his captain, and left the cockpit unattended, these are unprofessional behaviors....

John.

Agreed

[Murmur 3,941]

I would be extremely interested to hear opinions of real airline pilots here.

I think everyone agrees that the male pilot is inexcusable and deserved at least a licence suspension. But I can't believe someone could judge the behaviour of the female pilot professional in the least.

With regard to physical force: if a big and heavy FO slaps the Captain, is it ok for him to leave the cockpit in reaction? I think this discussion is surreal...

Of course, all of this in the hypothesis that the events as described by the press are accurate.

 

[Silicus 881]

We can't give a proper answer to what we would do or what would have been the proper steps, since we do not know the whole truth of the story.

Everything reported in the media/press nowadays is hardly ever the truth.

 

[HiFlyer 9,359]

23 minutes ago, Murmur said:

But I can't believe someone could judge the behaviour of the female pilot professional in the least.

Perhaps not, but I would think that being attacked is a heck of an extenuating circumstance......

I suspect if I was her, and the circumstances were exactly as written, my lawsuit would be incoming.

I would'nt be surprised if thats what we hear next about this story, as he's also the one who left the cockpit unattended by coming out after her.....

However since this isn't a US airline, who knows what legal protections the crew has?

[n4gix 4,947]

51 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

However since this isn't a US airline, who knows what legal protections the crew has?

Well, the linked article to the Indian newspaper did report that Jet has stated they would support her if she chooses to pursue this legally. That sounds like all the support they could offer under the circumstances.

[Tokitaumelie 164]

Sadly, cultural problem, hundreds of years in the making, coming to the fore. 

 

 

[Indy511 686]

So now we have pilot rage. What's the world coming to?

[JNS 106]

Pilot rage doesn't worry me as much as pilot suicide-by-plane, although I imagine rage would be more common.

Jeff

 

[Skywolf 992]

I am gonna assume that the pilot and co-pilot had an affair.  These issues usually happen when hotels, alcohol etc all are involved (Assumption: Pilots get to stay in hotels, and hotels have bars etc...get the drift).

At worst, they could have just landed the plane in full automatic mode (just need to have ILS and what not and altitude adjusted on the MCP at T/D.....lol, we all can do that in our PMDG birds etc - joking)

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

This is India where employment laws are very lacking so yes in accordance to their lack of laws fire them both effective immediately, which they did.

What would be very concerning would be if the cockpit door locked and locked them both out.

[dmwalker 604]

41 minutes ago, Matthew Kane said:

What would be very concerning would be if the cockpit door locked and locked them both out.

For what it is worth, someone on PPRuNe said there is a procedure for that and you would think there must be.

[Wink207 78]

I'm still unclear whether the woman or the man was the captain. Either way, it is fundamental in any enterprise that if you are in charge you must not diddle the help. Never, ever has a good outcome.