Rainboe:
So where have I been biased other than expecting him to have a fair hearing with his side of the story also being heard?
I believe I supplied a direct quote.
Rainboe, I freely admit that I have no actual
expertise and experience in large aeroplane, large crew, long range operations to impart, though I'm not convinced of the relevance of that to my offering comments or an opinion here. I do get the benevolent dictator thing, I really do. Thing is, absent the benevolent part the dictator part can't work in isolation except in the most extreme circumstances.
I along with others have speculated and offered opinions that draw on the factual elements of the story which are not in dispute:
- In the early morning of 14 July United Flight 842 from Sao Paulo, Brazil to Chicago O'Hare diverted to Miami international some 8 hours into a scheduled eleven hour non-stop flight. The flight was on the ground for about 1 hour during which time the purser was the sole person to disembark before the aircraft took off again and continued on to Chicago where it arrived safely a little over one hour later than originally scheduled. The purser was not arrested or placed in preventative custody.
- A United spokeswoman has been reported as saying: "The pilot chose to divert the flight due to a crew issue".
- An FAA spokesman has been reported as confirming that the captain felt the matter needed to be resolved on the ground, and that the aircraft landed without incident in Miami and was on the ground for less than an hour before departing to Chicago.
Hearsay has it that the origin of the 'crew issue' was the captain's request that the purser provide him with the crew decs, hardly a critical issue, though I don't discount the possibility that there may be more to it than that. I'm sure the captain will have the opportunity to present his side before the people who matter to his future employment prospects, UAL management. I don't expect him to post a defense of his actions here, nor do I expect to see much in the way of a public statement from UAL explaining the incident or how they intend to resolve the personnel issue within the company. So why hold fire on what is billed as a rumour network?
Now if you want to speculate using the same basic facts and offer an opinion that exonerates the captain's behavior, then have at it. But a blanket assertion of command authority as many have offered in the captain's defense simply doesn't cut it, and asserting that we should all just shut up and await the captain's side of the story we are never likely to see or wait for the results of an investigation that will likely never be made public is a cop out.
Oh, and life isn't always fair. Even for folks who have managed to scale the heights of command within a flag carrier but then screw up over something as stupid and insignificant as would appear to be the case here.
Post #28 for all those keeping count.