No I don't know the guy...but I know many like him and I am apalled at the thought he was charged, let alone convicted....
Likewise. This just bonkers.
As an aside, I don't really buy the 'lots of holes lined up' idea on this accident. In my experience the 737-300 pressurisation can be glitchy anyway, especially if you are MELing single pack. In other words I've had several occurances of failure to pressurise. Regardless of switch positions the crew did not check and then got confused by the warnings. The first is flight crew error and the second is poor training. Either way the flight ops management / training department have to shoulder some blame.
Alan Irwin is NOT at fault. The judgement is an outrage and a direct threat to every aviation professional. There are .. what? over 350,000 members of this site. How about we DO something about it?