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!

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.

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

Hoaxer who aborted Virgin landing at Melbourne Airport revelled in YouTube infamy

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.

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.

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.