Originally Posted by
KRviator
I'm amazed "someone" at American, the CP/Duty Pilot/Ops/Whoever this crew would have contacted actually thought having the crew continue the flight was a reasonable course of action - and that's not even considering away the loss of evidence with the overwriting of the CVR.
No one wants to delay a widebody full of passengers, but after a serious incident the judgement and performance of the crew is likely to be impaired and to have them stewing on such an event when they could have returned to the gate, downloaded the recorders and called out a standby crew in a couple hours to continue the flight would appear to have been preferable - and I think the NTSB will concur when they address the lack of availability of the CVR data on what is a (very) serious near miss.
Legitimate question - could ATC have refused AA106 clearance to depart until any evidence was secured? I know that's supposed to be the responsibility of the Operator, but where it is clear they are not going to do so as in this case, is there a precedent for Ground directing them to return to the gate?
It’s possible the AA crew did not contact or discuss the incident with any company management entity, or if they did the full gravity of the incident might not have been understood
If they had decided to return to the gate and request a replacement crew then that discussion would most certainly have taken place although initially contact could well be with a union safety rep
In the moment the decision to continue might have seemed logical bearing in mind no actual collision occurred and how well did they see the approaching Delta Aircraft if at all considering the geometry of the two aircraft ?
Of course it’s not known how detailed the telephone conversation was between the AA captain and the tower, that may or may not have impressed on him what a close call it was
I don’t think there’s any question the AA crew should have returned to the gate