Nicholas.Nickle wrote :
Having said that, let me say that there are many many other unsung heroes/heroines who saved aircrafts from harm with their pro-active actions pre - empting any big drama.
On the same vein, when I was flying for a major Pacific Rim carrier some years back, a colleague pre - empted a more serious fuel leak problem when he countermanded the explicit instructions from company maintenance control and despatcher. He had a engine fuel leak; however the leak rate was moderate and coupled with the well known tendency of the B777 FQI to vary quite a lot inflight made trouble shooting extremely difficult. He could not definitively ascertained that it was an engine fuel leak ( lack of visual cues, and other engine / fuel parameters ) but he certainly nailed it as a fuel leak. However the wonder boys at maintenance were analysing real time data from data link and concluded that there was no leak! They ordered him to continue or if he wanted to divert, he had to come back to them at main base. He told them to stuff it and diverted to ANC whereby an real moderately atomizing engine fuel leak was discovered! Had he diverted as suggested to some stormy lightning stricken airports ( as their enroute airports were that particular day ), they could have ended up as a giant fireball! Instead gratitude from the company, they tried to cover up the inadequacies of the maintenace and despatch departments...in so doing they employed many tactics to cut him down to size. I was utterly disgusted with the attitude of the company management pilots that I refused to renew my contract after my fifth year and plied my skills elsewhere.