Quote:
Asiana Airlines considering legal action after - CNN.com
Really? Asiana trying to
polarise support? Guess it might offset their huge insurance burden and counter
suits for corporate manslaughter.
Frankly, sounds like an overreaction. That joke / prank may have been silly
but I didn't think it was horrendously out of place or offensive or anything
(compared to the baseline on american TV). The racial / nationalistic angle was
perhaps offensive to some, but it's not as if these pilots are blame free.
Every time some dude believes his GPS and drives himself onto railway
tracks we make fun of them. Or people that do stupid stuff while yapping away on
cellphones.
These Asiana pilots aren't exactly beyond reproach. I don't
know why everyone wants to treat them so reverently.
In any case I
don't know how they well make a legal case that the pilots' reputations were
hurt, if all the TV station used were these silly pseudonyms.
I wonder if this isn't a brilliant tactical move by the airline's attorneys.
Now, if the NTSB's finding of probable cause is nothing more than Pilot Error, the groundwork has been laid to dispute the impartiality of the finding:
The NTSB can't possibly be impartial, because they made fun of (especially of the ethnicity of), our pilots' names...
Edit to add: The ethnic angle might also impugn the board's credibility with respect to any findings critical of the contributory effect of Korean culture to the conduct of the crew.