As SLF I have been reading this thread with interest.
I find a useful tool for looking at this kind of situation to be what I have heard called the "ethical square". It is a box with "people" in the centre; the four sides are "the law", "motivation"; "the situation at hand", and "consequences".
The idea is that good decisions are ones that focus on the intrinsic value of people and that take into account the four sides. The "law" can be company regs, a national law, a religious law, or any other form of written code. It is there, but it alone will not help to determine the best outcome. As someone once said, the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
The sides I think are the hardest to factor in when considering a decision are "motivation" (it's hard to be really sure of one's own motivation) and "consequences" - we cannot foresee them all, and we must not overlook the consequences of *inaction* either.
A final thing about this square is that the outcome from one instance cannot be held up as a precedent or justification.
Tl;dr: it's impossible to generalise from the actions of this pilot, but it made for a fun social media post.