Pilot / Crew "disagreement" delays ExpressJet flight 5 hours.

[WillFlyForCheese]

http://www.abc10.com/story/todayinthesky/2015/09/22/pilot-disagreement-delays-united-express-flight-by-5-hours/72622696/


A United Express flight was delayed for five hours in Lubbock, Texas, this past weekend after its pilots got into a "disagreement" that ultimately left them "unavailable" to operate the flight.

The Saturday flight was operated by ExpressJet, a regional carrier that flies feeder flights for larger "mainline" carriers. The carrier was operating the Lubbock flight under United Airlines' regional United Express brand. ExpressJet flies for American under its American Eagle brand and for Delta under its DeltaConnection brand.
As for Saturday's United Express flight, ExpressJet spokesman Jarek Beem confirmed the incident to The Associated Press, acknowledging Houston-bound Flight 4453 was "delayed due to crew availability."

"There was a disagreement among crew members," Beem told AP. "There was no fight ... there was no physical altercation thankfully."
Still, the disagreement apparently was heated enough to prompt a call to police, a traveler who claimed to be an eyewitness told The View From the Wing frequent-flier blog, which was the first to report the incident. Airport police did not immediately respond to messages from AP seeking comment.

[OldLurker]

Sounds interesting. Maybe the captain got impatient on the long schlep from the terminal to 17R and wanted to take off from an intersection? Or save even more time and go for 17L?
http://aeronav.faa.gov/d-tpp/1510/00241ad.pdf

Sorry, but there's something about the fine city of Lubbock, Texas, that inspires (attempts at) humor ...

[Crabman]

Can the F/O. Even if he were right, he was wrong.

[Huck]

I walked off a DC-10 in 1999 in Harare Zimbabwe.

Captain wanted to fly an unsafe and unairworthy jet. Flight engineer backed him up. I used all the CRM tricks I had to no avail, so I said, "I'll make this easy for you. Call the chief pilot and tell him I'm refusing to fly the aircraft." Then I got my bags and went back to the van.

These things occur, still.

[Hotel Tango]

Seriously though, what if it was down to just that. After all CRM does effectively encourage F/Os to speak up. So, let's say that the CPT wanted to do something that the F/O was uncomfortable with and he did not want to lose face and back down, and that the F/O fearing for his own safety and that of the passengers wouldn't back down either. What then? Stalemate and return to the gate and cancel I guess. How many accidents have been attributed to F/Os not speaking up or not being assertive enough! Not saying it was the case here but such a scenario is plausible. Would certainly be interesting to know more, purely for the CRM aspect (if applicable).

[framer]

most airlines have the odd ******** in both roles, it could have been either pilot who was being unreasonable.

[dbee]

Not quite like that, but close - we were airborne at the time doing a well known leg(Domestic Nigeria) Lagos - Kano in a 125-600 almost 40 years ago. The Capt (PF) on a non standard departure ------ATC requested to establish on the 030 radial (ie, almost NE) and the PF turned TOWARD the LG (terminal) VOR. After shouting a number of times "you are turning the wrong way" I said 'I have control', put the jet on a closing heading for the 030 radial and then said 'you have control'. After all this time I never had an apology, an explanation or just "thanks". Naturally with that sort of autocrat, I voted with my feet ASAP! And, of course, I was the very junior copilot in both years (15+) and hours (8000+)

[oblivia]

Interesting how all the supposition so far has the righteous F/O standing up to the dastardly Captain who wants to throw the SOPs out the window.

That's not a million miles away from what one (supposed) passenger is claiming:

Pilot was coming in 10 knots faster then he should have been [on arrival into Lubbock], co-pilot then radioed tower and told them, which started argument in cockpit as they landed.

Co-pilot and pilot [disembarked], we all boarded and were seated. The fight attendant proceeded with her preparation, she then announced that due to a disagreement between pilot and copilot she felt it was unsafe to fly with them, she felt our captain was unstable as did our copilot and for our protection we needed to disembark.

As I was going up the jet way [to get off the plane] our captain comes running down the jet way yelling “who told us to get off.” I was out of jet way but I could her him yelling at our flight attendant, we all waited by ticket agent stand as the last customer came out the door was closed, and 5 minutes later police arrived.

Flight attendant and co-pilot were afraid captain would do something that would put us in danger and they took a stand. We all thanked our flight attendant and the co-pilot for looking out for us.

What Actually Happened On That United Express Flight Where the Fight Broke Out Between Pilot and Co-Pilot - View from the Wing (http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2015/09/21/what-actually-happened-on-that-united-express-flight-where-the-fight-broke-out-between-pilot-and-co-pilot/)

[sanjet]

Is this 10 knots faster than assigned speed or Vref? There's got to be more to this story. In any case Going Vref+10 or assigned speed+10 knots is nothing to scream about and is even in the stable approach criteria for most airlines.

In any case I hope flight data monitoring (FDM) can resolve the dispute.

[Halfnut]

Anyone good at LiveATC.net and it's archives for KLBB?

[DirtyProp]

How does a pax know if the approach is 10 kt faster?
New ifon app? Taking a peek inside the cockpit?

[Gordomac]

Cripes, REALLY bored on a Wed afternoon which is half day in Cyprus. Look, here's the thing, as we say in the States, they DIDN't get airborne. Pure professionalism. Well done chaps. Keep it off the Flight Deck. In the bar.............................bring it on .............!

[Halfnut]

How does a pax know if the approach is 10 kt faster?

From above -

"Pilot was coming in 10 knots faster then he should have been [on arrival into Lubbock], co-pilot then radioed tower and told them, which started argument in cockpit as they landed."

[topgas]

The fight attendant proceeded with her preparation

Good typo :)

[737er]

I heard they were arguing over who gets the fat one.