Nobody has questioned the authority of the pilot in command, here. However, the notion that the authority of the PIC is absolute in all things is simply not true.
If a pilot makes a safety of flight decision, he or she is within his or her discretion, but is always subject to review after the fact. Always. Pilots have lost their certificates in times past for improper reactions, and for creating a bigger emergency than the one that existed. Simply being PIC does not mean one has carte blanche authority to do as one pleases.
If one can make a flight for example, but simply doesn't wish to do so, doesn't excuse one from the refusal to make the flight. PIC or not. If one feels that one is privy to evidence that the company doesn't have, then one had better provide that information to the company, or take the flight...or risk one's career and in refusing to do so.
One may take emergency action only so far as necessary to meet the needs of the emergency. If one is faced with taking flights that are scheduled, one had better be able to prove one's reasoning, if one refuses. The original poster claims he has proof. This sounds very much like a legal issue...so why is he trying to garner sympathy on a public rumor board? Get an attorney.
Do u know his routing? Maybe his area of operation is indeed affected?
I don't, and didn't say that I did. Perhaps the area of his operation was affected. Perhaps the airline had no reason for firing him for refusing to fly there. Perhaps he has a case. Perhaps he should get an attorney and fight the company over the matter. Perhaps he should refrain from publicly airing the details of a legal case.
Personally, I've been flying throughout the area affected by the volcano since it began; I flew in during the volcano before the airspace was closed, and found everything was being grounded as we approached to land. I kept flying and operating, and in fact two days ago took photographs of the volcano itself. At the moment I'm situationed just a short distance from where the original poster stated the events occurred...Barcelona. Do I know his routing, you ask? The original poster stated "
His contract was terminated after he made the decision not to operate flights out of Barcelona, Spain- air space that was contaminated by volcanic ash- this week due to safety reasons." Perhaps you failed to note this. I'm here now, and still flying. You're not?
It is amazing how many pilots jump at the opportunity to attack your fellow colleagues! What happened to the solidarity that once graced this profession?
There has never been "solidarity" in this business. Nor should there be.
Nobody attacked this pilot. The pilot should not be posting his or her case on the internet unless directed to do so by his attorney...and an attorney isn't going to recommend that course of action.
I can think of a long string of dead pilots who did things they shouldn't. Would one engage in enough "solidarity" to defend them in their actions, were they alive today? Hardly. Foolish acts give us all a bad name.
We have a one-sided story here with little information given. I certainly have no need of solidarity with a one-sided story with no information. I can make observations about what's given, however, and here we are.
Barcelona was closed in northern Spain this last week, along with a number of other airports. Operation in or out of these locations wasn't a pilot discretion issue; the flights didn't fly, period.
Is the original poster, or the "friend" who whom he refers, asserting that the firing took place due to a refusal to fly out of a closed airport? A refusal to fly after the fields were opened? A refusal to fly based on his own weather information, rather than official sources that showed the airspace eventually open? We don't know, and the original poster (et al) hasn't elected to inform us.
I can tell you I've quit jobs before when I wouldn't compromise my professional position on a safety issue, and will do it again in a heartbeat. Perhaps that's what happened here. I can also tell you that I didn't get on the internet and begin crowing about how wronged I'd been, if indeed such was the case here.