Pablo Sacked from MyTravel
 

Pablo Mason has been sacked from MyTravel after letting a footballer on the flight deck.
Not strictly military but Pablo Mason was a Tornado GR1 pilot in the Gulf War 1.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770

Surely not the same bloke who had to leave his last employer after breaking the rule that said "do not take off with the SPILS switched off", lost it and got the Martin Baker letdown. As he so ably quoted," rules are there for the guidance of fools" etc etc.

:D One of my favourite maxims. Which neatly kicks into touch my advice to Hippo. Thats why I was only TG8 I guess.

edit.

PS: On a brighter note, this is another of my favourite Maxims.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/enterta...6801162063.jpg

No loss to SH then!:)

Read the thread on this topic in the Rumours and News Forum. The man is a hero, nay, he's a god and the victim in this whole sad affair. His fellow professional pilots blame everybody but him. Suppose this famous footballer had just had a snort of something white and powdery or a few tots too many before being invited to the flight deck. If the RAF got pi**ed off with Mason's antics, why shouldn't a company that carries passengers?
s37

Did he need a higher score than an Army candidate at OASC?

On the plus side, one more seat vacancy at MYT......if that sort of thing bothers you!

:}

what a sad bunch you lot really are.

Go put your heads back where they came from, up your own backsides

There's a hint of 'the final straw' about Mason's antic.....

Maybe, but schadenfreude is also a fools game

I am sorry, but in my mind, the man was a living legend. I am sure you all know the story of how he crossed over from rotes to fast jet...

I am sorry to say this but he is a dying breed, currently being replaced by buffoons who think a bi-annual fitness test and wearing berets in theatre are a good thing. We need more like Pablo in the RAF right now if we are going to save it, not less.

Yamaha,
That's two posts here and one on Rumours & News none of which contributed a great deal to either thread.
Defend the guy by all means but with some kind of reasoned argument.

Vin Rouge,
Agreed we need as many Pablo's as we can get in the RAF flying Tonkas and Typhoons etc but not in civil airliners.
s37

not defending Pablo, just find the posts, particularly from the military, PATHETIC

Nothing more, nothing less.

Flew back from Rhodes (as SLF) with Pablo in the LHS.

My, does he like the sound of his own voice. He was on the PA as we were boarding with his tales and homilies, and due to late pax etc. we had a good 20 minutes of him, which was about 19.30 too much. The rest of the pax were lapping it up while I was scrambling in the seat-pocket for the barf-bag.

Truly a legend in his own lunchtime.

Kicking a bloke when he's down was never an honourable tradition.

Looks like a safe pair of hands - like flying with your dad!
As we don't have many "old, bold pilots" around anymore, this old one would probably, and safely, convince me, as long he is not related to Carlos at Lajes, in the Azores

Is she related to Emma?

:}

Back on topic, the rule may be pants but they are there for the obeyance of everyone, fools and wise men included, in the outside world. Sad, maybe, but true. Don't know Pablo, read the book and saw him on the telly as I was going through trg, but that's it. Hope all works out well for him (but my comment about spare seats still stands!!)

The "anti" comments here say more about the folk posting than about the man himself, especially the ones who had a chance to tell him face to face but obviously didn't.

I must admit, I was waiting for an example to be made like this and hopefully highlight the complete waste of time some of the new security rules are. What if it had been Pablo's father on the jump seat? Still a security risk? What are we trying to achieve by restricting access to the jump seat.
Unfortunately, we have rules for rules sake, passed by Transec, whom I get the impression are reluctant to rock the boat. Let us not forget, we have flying staff that have access to the flight deck that haven't been security checked purely because they are resident abroad.
Do we still allow certain minorities to carry a dagger airside as it is part of their religion? If I, as a white christian tried to pass with the same dagger, would it be taken from me?
My sympathies are with Pablo, however ,I don't rate his chances of winning.

Having read about Pablo many years ago, he does have quite a history. Most of which was very good and anyone who put their life on the line flying over warzones has my full respect.

However, with all that has gone on in the world over the last six or so years and especially in the aviation industry, can we really afford to go breaking rules set out by the DfT that are there to protect people?

We may not like them but as bureaucratic as they may sound, rules are rules and if you break them and get caught, you have to be prepared to take whatever crap is coming your way. Over the last few years the rules have been put into black and white with no or very few grey areas.

Yesterday there was thread on this site (sensibly removed - I have to say), whereby a young student pilot faces possible dismissal from the Royal Air Force following the disputed position/action of a landing light switch. For what it's worth, I thought judgements made against him were particularly harsh.

Pablo, on the other hand, is an experienced guy who should have known better!

Why was that thread removed by the way? Is there an official explanation? I have an idea, but still..

I had a sortie in NI many moons ago where, (edited owing to the tabloid dimension here on PPRuNe. Story stands.) No debrief on the way back, on return to the SH det or at any time afterwards.

The captain was Pablo. F*** all happened to him when we got back to Aldergrove. F*** all seemed to happen to him throughout his life in the SH Force, although that can't be true as he was proud of the fact that he was the most senior Fg Off in the RAF through delays to promotion to Flt Lt.

Probably the sort of tale that folk dine-out on, chuckling quietly at the exuberance of youth and the necessity for hierarchies to have "characters" to keep them human. However, the object lessons for me were:

Some folk can fool all the people above them all the time,

Some folk can talk a very good career,

and some flight commanders aren't worth the oxygen they waste.

What a boy!!

Mind you if I had to fly choppers, I'd be pissed also, before I flew.

Those were the days.:)

Sapco2

Actually what is the max flight level for lowering the gear and can you provide a reference?

There seem to be a lot of folk here willing to badmouth a named individual, when he's already down, from behind the shelter of their own anonymity.

That's not very elevating.

I only met Pablo once, and so I don't pretend to know the bloke. But whatever he is or isn't, was or wasn't, when I was interviewing him about Granby I was struck by the realistic idea he had of his own abilities (which he obviously thought were limited, as he'd "been lucky to get fast jet") and by his obvious loyalty to and fondness of his flight in Granby.

He also seemed to have as high a regard for the late Bob Brownlow (who I'd known from RAFGSA and ULAS days, and who Pablo flew with in the Gulf) as I did, and seemed happier to talk about Bob's sterling qualities than about himself.

He seemed a bit of a twit, perhaps, with the big moustache and the cultivated 'colourful character' persona but a fundamentally good and decent man who had done more with his life than I've done with mine, and who deserved better than the pet shop he was then running.

So I wish him well, to be honest.

Guys,

I do have an issue when an individual believes rules concerning safety can be bent. Allowing people into a cockpit isn't like exceeding the speed limit by 15 Mph when the roads are clear and its 2 in the morning. This individual has been a maverick all of his life with perhaps an unfounded belief and confidence in his own abilities. I reserve judgement on the flying side but I do have a personal recollection of Pablo dating back to days in RAF Laarbruch post Gulf Story One.

He was attempting to change the oil on a BMW that he was hoping to sell. The oil wasn't leaving the car quick enough so some further action was required. The car was sitting at head height on an elevated ramp and Pablo decided to reach into the car and start the ignition. Unfortunately the car was in gear and it drove off the front of the ramp... It was saved from diving into the ground (and killing anyone) by a chain link fence and a few strands of barbed wire which caught betwen the bonnet and the left and right wings.

A trip to the 1 Sqn RAF Regt adventure training store produced enough rope to secure and thence rescue the car.

Read into this what you will - all I learnt was that I wouldn't let this man be responsible for servicing my car.

Thud and Blunder.

You should add to your list of object lessons:-

Some P2s will be too spineless to refuse to fly with an obviously pi55ed captain, but more than happy to kick him when he is down and no longer scary.

In my personal view - there are places where rule breaking might be accepted and places where they aren't.

Endangering an aircraft and crew for a "crucial" military purpose is one thing;
Endangering aircraft and crew for pleasure is another;
But endangering aircraft, crew and passengers for entertainment is not on - whoever you are!

It is not just a company rule that has been broken.

Obviously people working with him have ratted on him to remove him from the scene - I wonder why.

Leaving aside any judgement on an individual (don't know him, probably never will), surely the issue here is that a member of aircrew has been fired for failing to operate an aircraft in accordance with the rules laid down by those who own the aircraft, the wishes of those who pay his salary, and the legislation written by those who have a legal responsibility for the safe conduct of flight. As far as I know, when you sign for the aircraft you aren't signing for your own rulebook too!

To me, it's fairly cut and dried. You are employed by an airline to operate the aircraft in accordance with a company SOP, and a set of legal regulations. If you fail to do so without suitable reason, they are entitled to discipline you as they see fit. You don't own the aircraft and you don't write the rules. You are a very talented bus driver, that's all. Yes, signing the 700/equivalent bestows on you a degree of responsibility and with that an amount of latitude in operation, but you have a responsibility to follow the rules as you have been employed to do. By all means protest if you think they ought to be changed, but if you flout them then you can expect to be bought to earth at some point!

I suggest this sort of public mudslinging at a named individual, by some who really should know better, is totally inappropriate.

Nicely put Shy Torque.......................

Spot on Shy Torque.

Shameful
 

This thread is a great example of the ugly side to this PPRuNe forum. Such a character assassination really does scrape the bottom of the barrel.

It is depressing to think that some of the worst posts here might come from former or current RAF officers. Yamaha is quite correct that some of the posts are pathetic, and childish responses such as '**** off then you cock' simply serve to reinforce that view.

Ewan,
Ah, the tabloid dimension. B&gger - beyond all the invective in the PMs and within the thread you are the one person who's succeeded in getting through re my observations on Pablo Mason's history. Post duly edited, but no regrets about letting defenders of consistent rule-breakers know that the actions of some inspire many not-so-lucky or flying-skill-blessed individuals to go on to make their own serious mistakes. Pablo got away with things for a long, long time.

Lawyers? No problem - I doubt whether Pablo would gainsay anything I wrote - he'd probably treat it as another wizzo yarn for volume 3.

T&B

Good move, I think. My post similarly edited.

The infamous USAF Bud Holland got away with extreme behaviour for a long time, without being reprimanded, and we all know what happened in the end.
More extreme than the subject of this thread, but one has to wonder what various CO`s were doing at the time ?

I first came across this studya couple of years ago, working in an entirely unrelated field.

http://www.crm-devel.org/resources/p...e/darkblue.htm

As works go, and reaching going beyond the tragedy of the whole damned business, it makes morbid but compelling reading. I remember the flight safety vid from the early 80s.. the one where the Jaguar crashes, and it emerges that the pilot has argued with his wife that morning about his breakfast, snapped at a Cpl on the flightline.. etc. The human mind and personality at work under pressure.. fascinating stuff, however awful the conseuences sometimes.

Pablo makes the BBC.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/c...re/7034412.stm

Pablo makes the BBC.
 

he may make a better job of it than the wasters currently frittering away the license tax :)