A professional pilot in the course of his employment encounters a situation that has a potential safety implication. To the Professional pilots I apologise. To the breathless and excitable, I make the following points. It happens to us all. It often happens multiple time in a year. A situation arises that either requires or invites us to make a safety report. We make those reports in the belief that they are going to be read and in some cases acted upon, to improve the overall safety standards of ourselves, our operations and our industry. Outside of the mandatory requirements we make those reports in good faith and in the implicit understanding that they will be constructively used to promote a positive safety culture for everybody concerned.
What we don't expect (and it is a worrying trend,) is that those reports will be hijacked by the entertainment media (and others) in order to ridicule, embarrass, or invite legions of uniformed opinion and crass comment. The danger being that such results only serve to stifle and restrict honest and open reporting.
These are professional pilots forums, and whilst I understand that contribution is not restricted to that demographic, it is still the target audience. I doubt that many of the "ha-ha" comments and "jokes" haven't been heard thousands of times before by individuals who have had to overcome exceptional challenges in their lives to reach the pinnacles of their own careers. It is embarrassing that so many people feel the need to contribute to this thread with little else, even though many have been removed.
This is a report by a professional pilot made as a matter of routine and in a situation where he made a decisive choice out of a number that were available to him. There was no adverse outcome. The report was no doubt intended to help prevent a recurrence of that particular situation. In essence it was little different to any number of similar reports any of us might make about a go-around, a heavy landing, a reduction of separation, or the myriad of other things that we collectively fill thousands and thousands of reports in for, every single year! The Daily Mail doesn't find an element of entertainment in most of those.
It would be sad if we thought twice about the best course of action, or making a report, simply because our decision might be torn apart on PPRuNe by gaggles of folk who really don't have a clue, or if they do, should perhaps, restrain themselves from using the point for a cheap gag!
Whilst it is understandable that the Daily Mail regards this snippet as "News" even though it didn't involve Princess Diana or Immigrants, it is harder to understand why Professional pilots would.