Italian Pilot Threatened to Crash Plane

[ORAC]

The Times: Airline pilot threatened to kill 200 passengers if wife left him (http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/article4706798.ece)

An Italian pilot who warned his estranged wife that he would crash his passenger jet if she left him was stopped by police from taking the controls of a Rome-Japan flight minutes before it was due to take off.

Officers at Fiumicino airport were alerted by the man’s wife after he sent her a text message threatening to kill himself and the 200 passengers on board. The incident, which has been kept secret until now, occurred in January last year — two months before Andreas Lubitz, a German pilot, deliberately crashed his Germanwings A320 into the Alps, killing 149 passengers and crew.

The Italian pilot is in his 40s but has not been named. He was married with children, and already known to police in Padua, Italy, after his wife reported him for mistreatment. When she announced she was leaving him, he threatened to commit suicide. When that failed to convince her to change her mind, he sent the text saying he would kill himself as well as the passengers on his flight that night.

She immediately contacted police, who alerted officials at Fiumicino airport. A substitute pilot was given control of the flight, with the passengers left unaware of the switch.

The pilot was suspended and is still undergoing psychiatric evaluation, Italian media reported yesterday. The airline concerned has not been named.......

[erbuscap]

Right..... because there are many airlines flying from Rome to Tokyo.

[Slow and curious]

Thank God for women.

[JumpJumpJump]

We can rule out that he was not an EMB-195 pilot for Air Dolomiti

[Greenlights]

seriously, if some start killing themselves (+ pax!!) only for a woman, it is time to include psychologist tests !

[Hotel Tango]

Don't get paranoid Greenlights, 99.999999% of men who threaten to kill themselves because of a woman, don't!

[parabellum]

I doubt if this pilot will get his licence back. Taking himself off duty and reporting sick through severe stress etc. then yes, possibly, when his life is sorted out, but threatening suicide and murder of the pax, no way, the airline simply cannot take the chance.

[dignified]

Perhaps an appropriate way to analyze what is happening here is simply that we pilots cannot race a family anymore, we spend too much time sold out to our dream job for little money considering that by the time we retire we are faced with a lonely life.

There is no psychological treatment for amputated spirits!:=

This pilot may have lost his family and most probably his job:eek:

[MTOW]

I doubt if this pilot will get his licence back. Exactly this same situation happened in my old airline some decades ago. He was sacked, (and I don't think there was a single pilot in the company who'd flown with the man who disagreed with the company/local regulator's decision, which speaks volumes), but when he returned to his own country, (a smallish country in Western Europe), he seems to have been able to convince the locals that the wife had stitched him up. He's still flying as a captain in his home country as far as I know, and I'm pretty sure he frequents these pages.

[jvr]

I wonder at what point she realised that that one phonecall was the most expensive one she ever made?:ooh:

[gcal]

She did what was correct and what anyone should do in the same circumstances - no good mentioning it afterwards.

[Ian W]

two months before Andreas Lubitz

So she had 8 weeks of 'did I do the right thing' followed by confirmation that she did.

[RealUlli]

Exactly this same situation happened in my old airline some decades ago. He was sacked, (and I don't think there was a single pilot in the company who'd flown with the man who disagreed with the company/local regulator's decision, which speaks volumes), but when he returned to his own country, (a smallish country in Western Europe), he seems to have been able to convince the locals that the wife had stitched him up. He's still flying as a captain in his home country as far as I know, and I'm pretty sure he frequents these pages.

So, I'm going to ask: if he's still flying, as a captain, with no visible problems - Isn't it possible that's exactly what happened?

I know neither him nor her, I don't know the situation why everyone agreed with the decision to sack him, but I know some people that I would agree to sacking...

I also knew some rather vengeful women some of which I wouldn't be surprised if they pulled a stunt like that just to spite their ex.

Disclaimer: just an SLF, not that captain. ;-)

[Mikehotel152]

Interesting story. I too know people sufficiently devious and vengeful to make up such allegations. I also know people stupid enough to utter such threats without the slightest intention of carrying them out.

[TeachMe]

Why has nobody questioned whether or not he even said it? There are more than a few people spiteful enough to lie about such a thing, especially in a divorce situation. Just because it may not be in her financial interest to do so does not mean she may not have been blind enough to make the call without thinking it through.

[matkat]

It says it was a text so presumably she kept it to show police.

[Bergerie1]

The RAeS will be holding a conference on how to assess pilot mental health and well-being on 9 May in London. The link below provides some interesting statistics. I think pilots will be well advised to follow these and similar discussions so as to influence the debate and achieve a result that is proportionate to the risk:-

http://aerosociety.com/News/Insight-Blog/4098/Aircrew-mental-health-and-wellbeing-2015-to-2040?utm_source=The+Royal+Aeronautical+Society+e-communications&utm_campaign=6efb8a7c84-Daily_Bulletin_copy_205_3_4_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_01701ea34d-6efb8a7c84-291876761

[2close]

It says it was a text so presumably she kept it to show police.

Having picked up her husband's mobile, she sends a text to herself stating..........reads like a bit of Hollywood screenplay ;-)

However, I rather doubt that would be the case as she would be shooting herself in the foot big time regarding post-divorce maintenance settlements....at the end of the day, 50% of naff-all is naff-all!!

[Teddy Robinson]

That should be end of flying duties imho.

There are some boundaries that you simply do not cross.

[Groot]

What would the airline have done if the flight had already taken off, I wonder.

[striker26]

In the modern day, the technology is there to communicate with someone instantly and consistently (i.e. wifi on aircraft now) this pilot was texting before his flight which is scary. You have that pilot in Indonesia who killed many due to financial reasons, Germanwings and possibly MH370. Its time to put greater emphasis on the psychological status of pilots even before they get their PPL.

IMO we should monitor pilots debts and medical occurrences more closely as well and the airline should have the right to privately see a pilots account or go more in-depth into the medicals to clear pilots yearly psychologically. They do this heavily with police officers (at least where im from). You cant become one if you're sole motivation is money, or you past or potential signs of psychological are of concern, they make sure of this. Im not saying its 100% guaranteed but at least due diligence is done.

Unfortunately we have idiots in this world who think its ok to take hundreds of lives with them when they cant deal with life anymore! - madness

[SVR]

Perhaps we should be listening to the partners/families of aircrew more carefully, not dismissing such things as 'spite'. Examples of which there are more than a few would be those who live under the constant threat of "if you upset/leave/don't please me you'll have the deaths of n passengers on your conscience if I'm not rested, happy and calm when I report for work". This kind of emotional blackmail has many permutations and while most pilots would have no intention of carrying out the veiled threat and use it 'merely' to control their partners, how would we know unless we listen and act on it whenever we hear something similar?

[Sober Lark]

Unfortunately we have idiots..


Yes, lock them up and throw away the key! (a.k.a. locked cockpit door)

[wiggy]

IMO we should monitor pilots debts

...OK...but I'd I guess if you do that this side of the pond you'll find most of the new pilots in Europe are heavily in debt (I'm talking 5 figure debts, euro/sterling)..... now what?

[MrSnuggles]

Please...

I think this is not a women-vs-men bashing thread. It is a subject of greatest importance for people directly (air crew, maintenance) and indirectly (slf, security personnel) involved in aviation, or, for that matter, society as a whole.

When you put pressure on some people they will bend. Most will not. But it would be appropriate to have some kind of screening, yearly? bianually?, for anyone who might show a tendency to bad deeds.

Having some kind of reporting system for doctors might be one solution. We have that in Sweden: a select few diagnoses from the DSM or a select few physical problems requires by law that doctors report this to Transportstyrelsen (gouvernment agency who oversees all modes of transport). Some illnesses, be it physical (epilepsy) or mental (paranoid schizophrenia) might make you ineligible for several transport vehicle licenses. Other (clinical and severe depression with suicidal thoughts) might give you a temporary ban until things are more stable.

I do not know whether this wife did anything for "revenge" or "in spite". Maybe she was just a very concerned woman who did not wish to see her husband commit a terrible crime. Just as we were not in the cockpit of AF447, we were not at the receiving end of that text message. Maybe she was a "hysteric". Maybe she was a great woman with a conciense (spelling?). I operate by "better safe than sorry" and "belts and bracers just in case".

[Zombywoof]

Um, has anyone considered that maybe this story isn't true? :rolleyes:

Unnamed pilot, unnamed airline, unnamed destination in Japan, unnamed police force, unnamed wife...

All I see is a lot of, "according to a media report today", "the report said", "according to reports".

I would like to see something more substantial than, "according to reports", which sounds an awful lot like, "an anonymous source told me...".

The odour of bovine detritus is wafting on the breeze.

[aterpster]

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa214/aterpster/Honest%20Abe_zps009mvtf7.jpg

[neila83]

Even after germanwings some of you still want to bring up 'vengeful women'? If only his woman had done the same. Thankgod this one alerted the authorities, and its in a text messsge so we can be sure it was genuine.

I worry more about those of you flying planes who are so quick to auggest blame on the woman. I thought pilots are rational? All evidence is she did the right thing. You're pretty screwed up about women if you're instinct is to suggest that, and I'm not sure I like you near a cockpit. Men are pretty vengeful too and 100% of the ones suicidally murdering people. You're probably the same ones complaining about a flight attendant in the cockpit while one of you is in a toilet break, because obviously you're such gods; how dare anyone suggest a lowly flight attendant sit next to you so SOMEONE can open the door if needs be.

Tell me, how many planes crashed because of a flight attendant's ill intentions? And how many because of a pilot? It IS an issue that is not statistically insignificant in recent crashes. Personally I am not at all happy about an impenetrable cockpit door, I think it creates more dangers than it solves.

[Intruder]

this pilot was texting before his flight which is scary.
YGBSM (short for an old US Navy saying, YOU GOTTA BE SH!TT!NG ME)!

These days, I'd almost be worried that a young kid (def: younger than me) is NOT texting before a flight!

BTW, the originator of the report (the Times) is identified in the link provided by the OP).

[Zombywoof]

BTW, the originator of the report (the Times) is identified in the link provided by the OP).Indeed they are. Some fellow named Tom Kington wrote it. Unfortunately, they wouldn't allow me to read the entire article unless I gave them some money.

In a moment of madness, I declined the honour.

[Bergerie1]

I urge you all you read the RAeS link in my post 17 on this thread. Look at the statistics in it and then decide for yourselves whether this is a subject that needs to be treated much more seriously. A disturbingly high proportion of people have some mental health problems during their lives.

[Willit Run]

Many years ago, a major US airline had psychological evals as part of their interview process. "Did you rock in the rocking chair?"

Anyway, after many years of this one man conducting such evaluations, he killed himself.

Kind of makes you wonder if the evals were conducted by someone with a level head in the first place????

[Ian W]

I-Ford
It happened more than a year ago. Nothing in the news about it since. Now comes back with no details whatsoever.

I smell BS It is actually in several news outlets although some just link to the Times article.
Here ( Jilted Italian pilot threatened to kill 200 passengers if wife left him - Travelandtourworld.comTravelandtourworld.com (http://www.travelandtourworld.com/news/article/jilted-italian-pilot-threatened-to-kill-200-passengers-if-wife-left-him/) ) it says that the pilot was about to fly Rome - Japan one would assume as it was an Italian pilot and from another version of events from Padua that the flight was Alitalia possibly Rome to Tokyo.

[Airbubba]

Many years ago, a major US airline had psychological evals as part of their interview process. "Did you rock in the rocking chair?"

Anyway, after many years of this one man conducting such evaluations, he killed himself.

Kind of makes you wonder if the evals were conducted by someone with a level head in the first place????

And, remember the last name of the shrink was the name of a Roman god with two faces? Actually there was a father and a son. It was the father that met his untimely demise years ago.

The rocking chair is now in the Delta Flight Museum according to this listing for the son:

Micah Janus, Ph.D. – Employee Screening Specialist

Micah is best known for his significant contributions of psychological assessments of pre-employment candidates and executive promotions for Delta Airlines. Virtually every pilot and senior manager at Delta went through the famous “Janus Rocking Chair” screening during the past fifty years. The chair now sits in Delta's museum.

Yandle & Associates - Organizational and Management Consulting (http://yandleconsulting.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/Team.index)

Those wacko psych tests 'with no right answers' have been a part of pilot hiring for many decades.

Now, would you rather step on a cat or throw up on a crowded bus? :ugh:

[chuks]

At one point I had an interview with a Dutch psychologist who seemed like a rather strange fellow.

It started off with "Draw a person," when I drew a face.

"Is that a man or a woman?"

"A man."

"Now draw a woman."

Moving along we had to draw a "dream tree" and a "fantasy tree." Finally we got to the Rorschach test, all these ink-blot cards that looked like vaginas or crotches or something else vaguely v-shaped and hairy, many of them tinted red! So this one was a butterfly and that one was a dragon, and I passed the test.

Later, the company dispensed with his services after a series of total weirdos showed up. The stand-out was a Canadian who promised us that he had made a list of all of us who had annoyed and harassed him, when he was going to hire a Mafia hit man, back in Canada, to have us killed. Phew!

At another time I took a Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) with this question that asked whether I would rather wash wounded soldiers or else teach young children to sing. Hmmm ....

[AtomKraft]

A chum of mine was having a hard time with the local council. It was a dispute over our famous 'poll tax' if I remember right.

Anyway, for whatever reason, and no doubt having lost his temper already, he threatened to crash his plane into the offices of the local council.

My, how they laughed.

Seeing as he was then an FO with a well known uk IT operator, they called the chief pilot, who grounded my chum immediately.

I should stress that he was a perfectly normal guy, well as normal as most pilots I know anyway.

Eventually, he went back flying with the same outfit, and indeed went on to get his command which as far as I know he still has.

Moral of the story? Losing your rag and saying something stupid may cost you money, seniority etc, but it doesn't mean you are stone mad.

[Airbubba]

Anyway, for whatever reason, and no doubt having lost his temper already, he threatened to crash his plane into the offices of the local council.

My, how they laughed.

Seeing as he was then an FO with a well known uk IT operator, they called the chief pilot, who grounded my chum immediately.

I should stress that he was a perfectly normal guy, well as normal as most pilots I know anyway.


You'd probably be out of a flying job most places in the U.S. if you threatened to crash a plane into a building these days.

The loose cannon rhetoric of a couple of decades ago, e.g. 'kill all the scabs', is no longer laughed off as the excesses of emotion at contract time.

As with most recent personnel matters, I've only got hearsay information but I believe a couple of my coworkers have been removed from flying, perhaps permanently, due to threats of what the company has deemed workplace violence. One alleged threat was verbal with multiple witnesses, the other was on social media.

Three decades ago, self-appointed geniuses like Captain WOW at Delta would be somewhat protected by ALPA from company attempts to reign in increasingly bizarre speech and behavior at work. At least he was able to get some sort of settlement when the feds pulled his medical as I recall.

Twenty years ago, Captain Barney at FedEx did an early social media press to test when he made statements deemed to be threatening on the ALPA FedEx CompuServe forum. The company demanded that he submit to a psych exam which is contractual at most U.S. carriers. He initially agreed but then refused citing a conspiracy to end his employability as a pilot.

Since it was argued that more scrutiny of Auburn Calloway's behavior might have prevented the recently attempted FedEx DC-10 hijacking, it was difficult for ALPA to defend Barnhart's statements as merely passionate viewpoints and constitutionally protected speech. Captain Barnhart was fired by FedEx and never got his job back.

I would suggest that tolerance for speech or behavior out of the norm (with a few exceptions) is even less these days in the pilot workplace.