Originally Posted by
43Inches
This conversation reminded me about the BEA Flight 548 accident. Where leading up to the accident there was a number of incidents involving low time co-pilots and Captains in heated discussions about their competency. Then further industrial disputes led to a vast gap between the senior captains and the co-pilot group with things being very tense. One of the disputes was the requirement for senior FOs to be safety pilots in essence to babysit the low time cadets, they would miss out on pay due to no stick time. Enough that it may have triggered a heart attack in Captain Key, and then incapacitation on take-off that led to the accident, although we will never know what actually happened on the flight it was clear Key had an argument with subordinates that was described basically as the most violent you could get without physical interaction.
It wasn’t because Key’s heart attack was “triggered” by the “stress” of having to fly with a low houred cadet. The F/Os and Captains were on opposite sides of the industrial dispute, Key had come across another pilot on the other side of the dispute in the crew room preflight who wasn’t on his flight that day, and proceeded to get into a very heated argument. Key’s two pilots operating with him that day were both very young and junior, they weren’t involved in the argument but the experience of seeing a very senior and known “problem” Captain tear shreds off someone else preflight probably made them very unwilling to speak up in the flight deck, and then when Key had his heart issues and inadvertently retracted the leading edge devices sending BEA548 into a stall after take off the junior pilots kept their mouths shut lest they were on the receiving end of an outburst from a guy who seemed to be on the warpath against junior pilots.