MP wrote:
My last major concern is that in a year or two when the airline indusrty will hopefully be picking up, will this prosecution effectively halt my chances of getting a job with an airline?
Truthfully, I suspect it will.
And truthfully, given the circumstances:
I assumed nothing could go wrong
I suspect it should, too. The professional flying job market is very much in the favour of the employer at the moment; we can afford to be very choosy.
My best advice is, for the moment, to keep as quiet as possible about it and hope no-one asks (your posting here is probably an even bigger error as many people, myself included, now know far more about your misdemeanour than would otherwise have been the case)... If the question arises, you will need to be truthful.
If you get part of the way through a recruitment process, and it hasn't come up, then you should be ready to pick your time to mention it. Otherwise you will live in permanent fear of being 'found out' and binned.
I am puzzled by one thing, though. You said
It was a difficult position to be in
...and I fail to see what 'difficulty' there was with you following your progress on a chart and intervening when things started to go wrong...