Moron

[currawong]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-02/melbourne-airport-baggage-handler-spared-jail-over-hoax-calls/11546990

[Slezy9]

Melbourne Airport hoax caller (http://abc.net.au/news/2019-10-02/melbourne-airport-baggage-handler-spared-jail-over-hoax-calls/11546990)

[Okihara]

How did he manage to get caught?

[CaptainMidnight]

How did he manage to get caught?Best not to tell or even hint.

This being social media, readable by all.

[Paragraph377]

Perhaps he was just trying to exhibit some Virgin flair? Have some fun, engage in some crazy antics that Sir Richard just loves! Did he also spread his arms wide and make little plane circles in front of the plane as it was pushing back? Did he wave goodbye to the passengers from the GSE line? You can hardly jail someone from Virgin ground crew for having some fun and frivolity, surely?
Virgin, keeping the air fair......

[industry insider]

Sorry, should have gone to jail.

[TimmyTee]

If he’s truly remorseful, why doesn’t he hand over the transmitter to police or tell them where it is? His claim that it was thrown in a lake was proven false, after the entire lake was drained! How is that remorseful?

[AerialPerspective]

First thing to note is that he apparently has Aspergers (only according to the media and I'm not making any assumptions, I'm not a Doctor but I imagine it may have had some affect on the whole drama) - I'm guessing the reason for the light/deferred sentence and the requirement for mental health services is that the court determined he didn't have the capacity to determine what he did or the consequences of it... I know people will think 'he knew what he was doing' but none of us were in his mind nor examined all the evidence.
Second thing and the most alarming IMHO is that he either left or was dismissed from his job at VA YET, according to media reports he still had his uniform... how the HELL did that happen... if it did then it's bloody slack... has no one in that organisation heard of PS1771??? Oh, sorry, forgot, most of the people making decisions either have no airline background or came straight to DJ from High School...
In any case, no employer can completely screen or predict what an employee will be like but considering the prolonged rubbish this one goes to with recruitment and the associated processes, maybe some reality needs to come into the process and there needs to be a tick box on an exit form "Uniform Returned - Yes/No"...

[B772]

Industry Insider. The lefty's in Victoria do not like putting people in Jail.
AerialPerspective. I suspect the uniform was a hi-viz jacket.

[hoss]

I admire your empathy for this guy AreialPerspective. I think the photo of him in uniform is a quick selfie on the ramp before the offence. There is no mention of the uniform issue or VA being ‘slack’. I’m sure we could find thousands of non returned uniform examples at QF!

👍

[machtuk]

One has to wonder about our pathetic judicial system in this case! The judge said …."such behaviour is totally unacceptable" yet it obviously is acceptable to the judge as he let the guy lose back in to the community! He's one sick individual but that's okay as he has been recycled by our broke system, all good!

[Okihara]

Maybe this is yet another incident that emphasizes the need to evolve from plain VHF radio technology for digitial voice transmission. Public key encryption and signing would at least provide a way to identify the station calling safely (at least until quantum computers are in town) and rule out any prick with a transmitter from potentially wreaking havoc for the foreseeable future. Just to be clear, the encryption part would not be used as much because one would still want to enable other pilots to keep a listening watch but the signing part would allow any aircraft to verify the identity of the station calling.

Here's another thought: Not that I want to revisit the issue, but as a former baggage handler, this bloke certainly had an ASIC, hence a background check, thus proving yet again how useless this piece of plastic is.

[Sunfish]

Okihara, your solution just saddles Australian aviation with another cost. I have a simpler and cheaper solution: mandatory life imprisonment.

[Okihara]

Inmates for life also don't come in cheap by today's rates either.

[kaz3g]

It appears a number of contributors here have no idea of the impactAspergers, mental health issues and a seriously ****** up childhood might have on a person, or of the cost and the criminogenic nature of imprisonment.

Her Honour sentenced the offender to two years gaol to be served in the community while undergoing treatment to address the mental health issues that led to the offending.

Prisoners invariably come out of gaol worse than when they went in...much better to deal with the underlying issues for the individual and society at large.

The rate of imprisonment in Australia is at an all time high and so is our crime rate. Do the research and find out why.

[AerialPerspective]

It appears a number of contributors here have no idea of the impactAspergers, mental health issues and a seriously ****** up childhood might have on a person, or of the cost and the criminogenic nature of imprisonment.

Her Honour sentenced the offender to two years gaol to be served in the community while undergoing treatment to address the mental health issues that led to the offending.

Prisoners invariably come out of gaol worse than when they went in...much better to deal with the underlying issues for the individual and society at large.

The rate of imprisonment in Australia is at an all time high and so is our crime rate. Do the research and find out why.

Exactly what I was trying to point out. All the geniuses on here who think they know more than the Judges, Juries and people who have studied law should just stop pontificating. As for the suggestion of life imprisonment... if it HAD been disastrous, is the life imprisonment going to bring back the victims??? This guy clearly had problems which are way beyond the 'expertise' of anyone here. By the way, pontificating about Victoria's legal system when the federal goons are trying to lock people up for exposing a fraud committed by the previous LNP government against a friendly nation to steal gas off them is a bit rich.

As for the example of shooting people, yeh, because what we really want to do is have people running around with deadly weapons like another Western so-called democracy I could mention.

Regarding the uniform... at lease one news outlet commented that the carrier had failed to get his uniform back and there is no suggestion he took a selfie on shift before committing the act as someone has stated. Clear implication is that he was dismissed and failed to return his uniform and he then obtained a radio (probably stole it from the office before leaving, if so, another example of poor accounting).

[Near Miss]

So because he was young, and had Aspergers, he avoided prison time. Yet he was old enough, and mentally capable enough, to hold an ASIC. :hmm:

[AerialPerspective]

So because he was young, and had Aspergers, he avoided prison time. Yet he was old enough, and mentally capable enough, to hold an ASIC. :hmm:

I think you'll find while there are criminal checks for ASIC they largely look at serious crime(s) and politically motivated violence... if none of that is present or is below the threshold then he would have got an ASIC... I'm sure I read in the news that he was dismissed from his job (may be wrong but I'm sure that's what I read and heard on TV news) so obviously the ASIC was cancelled when he was dismissed.

What's your solution... no one ever gets an ASIC just in case they might become a criminal???

[AerialPerspective]

"...The court heard just before the hoax calls, Sant had lost his job at Virgin Australia as a baggage handler but had continued to put on his uniform and pretend to go to work..."

[Duck Pilot]

Obviously you people commenting about this story have absolutely no idea about anything with regards to mental illnesses. I’m not defending the young guy, however please show some respect.

Based on the media reports, the young bloke involved probably requires a lot of support and encouragement.

The negative comments being bantered here does not help. Just wait until you or a family member/friend suffers from a mental illness and you will know exactly what I’m referring to.....

Off the topic a wee bit, Mental Illness Awareness Week runs from the 6th to the 12th of October 2019. Good opurtunuty to look out for each other.

[melb_rampie]

I don’t normally involve myself in forums but feel I needed to respond to this topic.

Just a quick bit about me, I am a rampie at Melbourne, an avionics AME and also a private pilot.

First, this chap was well known around the airport and always came across as “strange” and lets just say there are a few other things that this guy has done
while working at Virgin that is not reported anywhere, I will not go into detail because I don’t have the evidence to back it up but lets just say its not the first thing he has done and some things are very serious.

Now, even though as the media and courts are reporting that he had aspergers/autism and i am not disputing that, but he is not as “stupid” as you may think and he new what he was doing. Well he was stupid for doing this and I feel he should be jailed but he new what he was doing.

You ask how he got caught? Well he was bragging to the rampies and was dobbed in, I did hear that a captain overhead the convo and reported it but I think a rampie dobbed him in.

Then when he did it a few days later acma setup there trace system and gained the evidence, I know that for a fact. There was a photo circulating but I cannot seem to find it.

Now as for the uniform, the baggage handlers are provided by I think Blue Collar Recruitment and the actual rampies are employed by Virgin directly and all you have to do is say I lost my shirt or the other one is worn and they will give you the new one and because you said its lost or damaged they will say just throw it in the bin so its very easy to keep the uniform, in fact everyone I know has kept there uniforms or at least has a fluro polo laying around.

I have spoken to a friend who’s son is severely autistic, This kid is not even audible and runs around screaming and he agrees with me that to many people are just using mental illness as a way to get off crime and giving a bad name to genuine people with illness.

Look, I know the bloke and can say he is just a complete idiot and is on the very low end of autism, he can drive a car my mates kid cant even do anything.

I spoke to someone I went to school with that has mid range aspergers and he knows I fly and he goes to me “man that bloke was an idiot, why would you do that” he has mid range aspergers and he knows its wrong!

[Mk 1]

I can see both sides of the arguments - but one thing puzzles me.... How can you supposedly NOT know of the danger of telling aircraft to make drastic changes in direction in a congested, carefully controlled airspace, yet be smart enough to hold down a job? I don't buy it, nor should the judge.

[CaptainMidnight]

According to this article, he wasn't on his own:

Hoaxer who aborted Virgin landing at Melbourne Airport revelled in YouTube infamy (https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/hoaxer-who-aborted-virgin-landing-at-melbourne-airport-revelled-in-youtube-infamy-20170905-gyb3cq.html)

[industry insider]

Based on the media reports, the young bloke involved probably requires a lot of support and encouragement.

I don't think anyone would be talking about support and encouragement if his actions had resulted in multiple fatalities. Sorry, claiming mental illness or not, everyone is accountable for their own actions. Everyone needs to understand that this type of unlawful interference with aviation is no less of a crime than hijack. This guy should have gone to jail to be "supported and encouraged" and to show that messing around with airliners full of passengers and the people that control them is unacceptable.

[Okihara]

Obviously you people commenting about this story have absolutely no idea about anything with regards to mental illnesses. I’m not defending the young guy, however please show some respect.

Based on the media reports, the young bloke involved probably requires a lot of support and encouragement.

The negative comments being bantered here does not help. Just wait until you or a close family member suffers from a mental illness and you will know exactly what I’m referring to.....

I am not defending the guy, however I believe he could do with a lot of positive support right now.


Just to be clear, Asperger's syndrome and autism are conditions, not mental illnesses. Now that this has been clarified, I'd still like to add that I find it very, very, very, ..., very unlikely that his condition was anything more than a pretext/excuse for what he did. I might of course be wrong but I'm very, very, very, ..., very comfortable with my assessment of the likelihood that I am not. And like others said, using "mental illness" or "personal issues due to X/Y that occurred at times past" as an excuse for wrongdoings is highly dishonest and disrespectful of those who actually suffer from those ailments.

[Duck Pilot]

As I stated, I am certainly not defending the guy. Totally agree that some people who do wrong wave the mental health flag when they get caught, which certainly should not be used as a defence pathway to get off. Looks like the people working with the person took the correct action to get him caught.

I'm no mental health expert, just putting it out there.

[clark y]

This is very similar to the ambulance worker who was assaulted recently in Victoria. My understanding is the mandatory jail time as required under Victorian law was not applied because of “mental illness”.

[machtuk]

Obviously this 'moron' (thread subject) is a danger to society, as a society what do we do with him? Obviously the courts won't protect society from his potential dangerous actions, they are akin to a weakness that's not in our best interests so what's the answer! Protect him? Protect us? Either way he's a lose recycled cannon!

[PoppaJo]

Most certainly requires jail time. Just like all those who have aimed lasers at aircraft in recent times. Most got off with the claim ‘not aware of the dangers of their actions’. The guy who shone at the Police Air Wing
in Geelong early this year got 2 months.

Pointing lasers at flight decks is attempted murder in my book.