Let me get this straight. An Ansett pilot has died in tragic circumstances. Although one respondent referred to the fellow as a captain, I understand he was a First Officer, which means he wasn’t on any list compiled outside AN in 1990 unless he was a long term permanent First Officer of at least 11 years standing, (which means he was virtually unemployable on the overseas market, so ‘threats’ to his future job prospects overseas because he was on any such list were academic.)
So if that is so, whatever the stressors he felt he was under were, they weren’t to do with any list compiled in 1990. So the calls for the hard hearted ‘89ers’ to call a moratorium on comments about (and to) their former colleagues (like the aptly named ‘captainschlonger’), in this case at least, appear to be misplaced. (Seriously, whoever you are, what were you thinking when you gave yourself that ‘handle’? You might not appreciate it, but it reinforces a lot of people’s perceptions of the type of ‘man’(!) who flew for AN post 89.)
It’s interesting to note that the very people now calling for others to ‘lay off’ and ‘show a little respect’ after this tragic occurrence weren’t showing any similar regard for the feelings of others twelve years ago (and for 11.95 years afterwards) when they were at the top of the heap.
It’s a bit like the calls for ‘let bygones be bygones’ and ‘forgive and forget’ and ‘make peace among yourselves’. Isn’t it amazing that it’s usually the people who’ve achieved an advantage at the expense of others who make these calls? It’s a bit like the Japanese position at the end of 1942, (which they planned all along to negotiate from): “OK, world, we’ve conquered half the western Pacific after a surprise attack on your unprepared forces. Now let’s negotiate a peace settlement and we might even be convinced to give 5 or even 10% of it back if you’ll all forgive and forget - and buy our goods.” For some obscure reason, the nations who’d suffered the surprise attack didn’t feel much like letting ‘bygones be bygones’ then any more than quite a few who watched the ‘heroes’ gain rapid advancement and huge pay rises after their self-serving actions in returning to work or ‘blowing in’ to AN and TN from outside in 89-90.
Along with, I’m sure, every other ‘89er’, I deeply regret that this man, whoever he was, could see no other option in the current crisis he was undoubtedly going through than to take his own life. My thoughts go out particularly to the family I assume he has left behind, for they are the ones who will suffer the most, and for many years to come, no matter how well he may have provided for their futures from a monetary point of view.
He’s not the first post 89 AN pilot who has taken this course of action and I can never begin to guess what factors might have been at the forefront of his mind when he made that fateful decision to end his life. But if he was a First Officer (and not a long term permanent First Officer), it could not have been any fear of his future job prospects because of his name being on any list compiled in 1990.