Mrs Taylor added: 'The co-pilot came and sat with us on the floor and said he just wanted to thank us for our co-operation and understanding.''He said that how calm we were and he was so grateful because he would have had to, he would have missed the time slot take off.'
As Chesley Sullenberger surmised about an article he read,
'We were once recruited and assessed for our judgement, these days we are recruited and assessed for our compliance'
If the FO actually said that, it would appear that OTP is more prevalent in the crew's mind.
Pilot in command means just that. It is why the law protects the Captain and indeed penalises him or her. The definition of strict liability ensures that pilots are required and held accountable to their actions.
Whether or not this is illegal is best left to the regulator, the vexing element of this is that the flight crew were more concerned with
slot maintenance and OTP which are rather lower down the hierarchy of concerns flight crew ought be focused on.