What a great spin.
The association's claims come after an incident in which a Virgin captain following the new procedure removed landing-gear pins from an aircraft and left them on the tarmac.
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"This oversight could have had fatal consequences and highlights the dangers of taking short-cuts with safety," association president Michael O'Rance said.
This reads like the pilot made a terrible mistake and (in best journo tradition) "we all escaped death by inches".
In fact it is nothing of the sort. I managed to sneak a peek at the appropriate bit of the Virgin manual.
Note: If during the Exterior Inspection, gear pins are in and the aircraft has been released for flight, they should be removed and left on the ground for subsequent stowing by the engineer.
It seems to me that this is a procedure to prevent the slight possibility of the gear pins bein left IN. The only danger I can see is if the engineers now tow the aircraft without checking the gear pins are in. You can hardly blame the pilots if this happened.
Compromising safety. Can't have pilots removing gear pins. Needs years of training and a licence to be able to do that. What CR@P!