So (while I formally acknowledge those here that still wish to believe that his incident is a fairy story), this crew broke FAR 121.629.
I take it I don't need to cite the FAR that says that the only reason one may have to deviate from an FAR is a concern for the safety of the flight. I presume no one would want to argue that the crew had safety-of-flight reasons for not deicing.
So, despegue and those like-minded, you have won yourselves the unenviable task of trying to explain how someone can reasonably break an FAR under these circumstances.
PBL
Hi again PBL
The reason should most certainly be found in the field of human factors, but as we STILL don’t really know anything about what really happened. So no one here is qualified to say exactly what human factors were at play.
Assuming that there was actually contamination on the aircraft – he ran a red light here – so no need in citing FAR’s and what not. We all know that you don’t take off with snow on the wings – even if there was no FAR/JAR about that.
I don’t know if your fairytale remark was aimed at me, but I guess it was.
All I am saying is don’t condemn the crew before you have all the facts – if you don’t think you need more facts – well then I must say that you have a very ancient approach to safety investigation. Only a minority here seem genuinely interested in finding the real causes. The rest are just an angry mob, ready to hang the pilots.
Remember that the first two people at a crash site are always the pilots, and no one would deliberately do anything to crash unless you are suicidal.
And on a slightly different note – saying “yes you do” is unclear and ineffective, I bet it would have been more effective to say something like “Iberia 6166 this is Speedbird 45 we are parked at your x o’clock position, we have a good view of your aircraft and we can see that your wing is covered by what seems to be snow” or something more precise than “Yes you do”