Flying from the ground up... Japan style

[rotated]

From Japan Today:

ANA punishes pilot, others for plane flying at wrong altitude

Friday, July 22, 2005 at 05:00 JST
TOKYO — All Nippon Airways has punished a pilot and 11 other employees and officials including its president for an incident in which the pilot flew a domestic passenger plane at the wrong altitude on June 5, the company said Thursday.

The Boeing 767 with 96 passengers and crew members aboard, originating in Nagasaki and bound for Tokyo's Haneda airport, was flown at an altitude of 10,400 meters, 1,600 meters higher than instructed by air traffic controllers for about 40 minutes. Among the 12 punished is the 39-year-old pilot who was given a strong reprimand. The 30-year-old copilot and ground servicing staff received warnings. Company President Mineo Yamamoto received a 30% pay cut for one month. (Kyodo News)

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=1&id=344021

Good Grief...

[PAXboy]

Meanwhile, in the UK, the management of the railways and associated maintenance companies get their legal charges reduced in court.

Interesting comparison or am I being totally unfair?

[CosmosSchwartz]

What on earth could the ground servicing staff do about it?! Not exactly the best way to ensure you get the best from people. I dread to think what would happen if they actually damaged an aircraft. Public flogging?

Talk about draconian.:(

[411A]

'Tis the oriental mindset, Japan style, Cosmos, and few outside the realm understand same.

Gen Douglas MacArthur was one of a few who did, oddly enough.:}
Too bad he didn't pay proper attention to his boss, Harry Truman, later on.
I suspect however, that Harry, before WWII, would have had trouble actually finding Japan on the map.
Let alone Korea.

[Leftit2L8]

Do you think he'll struggle to get by this month losing a 3rd of his salary ?

[Dave Gittins]

Call me dim as a mere Piper driver but were ATC asleep ?? I would expect a call off Farnborough radar if I strayed an inch above 2,400 into controlled airspace.

To fly 5,000 feet too high ..... like that is a whole mile ... without anybody noticing for a whole 40 minutes is strange in the extreme.

Or was he flying proceduraly way out of radar cover and only a call that said ".. maintaining three five zero .. " caught him out ????

How did he get caught ???

[d192049d]

Dave Gittins, perhaps ATC were shouting??

[Dave Gittins]

Perhaps this leads us back to a thread about A/C not responding to ATC for long periods .... perhaps they were asleep.

Wasn't there a South American 737 crash some years ago where the crew were so intent on listening to a football match they got lost and managed a CFIT.

DGG

[Farrell]

Well, from having lived there....allow me to explain what is going on.

This is a face saving operation. Everybody is punished and therefore no-one is fully to blame.

Saw this at least once a week and have had five "severe reprimands".

I was devastated the first time until my boss took me out for dinner that night and did his best to explain that it was the norm.

They're a strange breed - but you'll find that they'll all get some kind of surprise bonus payment over the coming months.

Nihon Gambaru!!