This whole issue beggars belief. First, the Captain knew full well what he was doing and continued with the "get in itis". Second the F/O, no matter how junior, did little to stop it when he could simply have pushed the TOGA button. It would have been very difficult, even for this clown, to have landed an 800 with TOGA thrust!
There are two major issues arising from this.
One, any F/O who isn't prepared to speak up when his own life is in danger doesn't deserve to be driving a pram let alone an aeroplane. They BOTH conspired to fly a possible unairworthy a/c back to STN and then allowed others to fly it for how long we dont know.
Two, the invisible culture at FR certainly has contributed to this incident and to the 'hear no evil speak no evil" culture as espoused by our friend, the Hairy Smelly One.
We all know that CD (who DID have the balls to question an asshole Capt) was sacked on the direct instructions of MOL five days after MD, chairman of the IALPA branch, was sacked. In those five days FR laid down the law to all its pilots that nobody was safe (CD was the Chief Pilot's daughter, remember?). The LHC culture was set in stone that day and nobody has had the balls to really challenge it since then, John Goss an honourable exception (but even he didn't win his case.)
There are many hundreds of excellent pilots in Ryanair. However, the culture they are working in stinks to high heaven and the IAA is utterly spineless in doing anything about the situation. Don't think they don't know what's going on, as they certainly do. If any evidence of their attitude is required just see the letter in Flight from their PRO a few weeks ago. For example, didn the IAA investigate the issues leading to the MD and CD sackings? We all know they did, but they never reported? I wonder why?
However at the end of the day all this can be stopped right away by the FR pilots. All they have to do is to report ALL issues to the company and copy same to the IAA. Even those jellyfish would be forced to act then. Isn't there a Freedom of Information Act in Ireland?