Originally Posted by
das Uber Soldat
I see. So, given you clearly know better, please enlighten us. You're faced with old mate who's made it clear he's not moving. Now what?
It would depend on the safety implications of the circumstances. If there’s been a swapping of seats by agreement between passengers, there’s no W&B risk and we know that being in the allocated seat for post-accident identification purposes is a furphy. Did old mate make it clear that he wasn’t going to comply with any directions of any crew in any circumstances? Lots of responsible people refuse to do patently stupid things but otherwise comply.
But I get it: With all the strict liability offences in the rules, the hapless minions called crew aren’t allowed to assess the safety implications and de-escalation options. As soon as there was a refusal to comply, it had to be escalated and the only option was to insist on compliance and to call in the police when there was a failure to comply. Otherwise, the hapless minions called crew commit their own strict liability offence for failure to comply with the ops manual. It’s ‘safety’ through imposition of strict liability on everyone for failure to strictly comply with the rules. No room for any application of any wisdom, here.
(One of the
fascinating aspects of the tasering of old mate is that the obligation of a passenger to comply with safety directions (CASR 91.575) is confined to directions given “during the flight”. Similarly, the obligation of a passenger to comply with safety instructions (CASR 91.580) is confined to instructions given “during a flight”. There is a definition of “flight” in the Civil Aviation Act. Can anyone point me to the bit of CASR that says that the word “flight” in CASRs 91.575 and 91.580 has a different meaning to the definition of “flight” in the Civil Aviation Act?
Had the aircraft started moving under its own power
before the CC directed old mate to return to his allocated seat? It may turn
very untidy for the airline and AFP if old mate was never subject to a lawful direction to return to his allocated seat. And a bit embarrassing for those who keep saying that old mate committed a strict liability offence as soon as he failed to do what he was told by CC...)