Two BA pilots questioned about mobile phone incident
Mmmmm PPruuune!
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The captain and co-pilot have been questioned by Lothian and Borders police, who are still investigating the incident.
The police then got involved and he was ordered back.
Insert shaking head smiley
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Some what ifs......
1 The phone was taken to the terminal building and had then blown up?
Hero pilot saves hundreds of lives as a headline?
2 phone is found to be ... Just a phone but capt claims he believed it to be a bomb, broke the law to protect lives! EU JAR and ANO allow for this.
3 The airline put capt and f/o through a CRM refresher concentrating on DM and one of the curved balls addressed was ,yes you guessed it Finding a mobile phone on board after push back.
4 The LGW chief pilot , training manager and tech manager are all good blokes?
Actually 3 and 4 aren't what ifs .
If the capt can prove he believed it could have been a bomb and that the average pilot with his training and experience may have made the same
decision , he should get away with it , IMHO see 2 and 3 above.
Mind you he may get done for littering or if the phones damaged criminal damage.
1 The phone was taken to the terminal building and had then blown up?
Hero pilot saves hundreds of lives as a headline?
2 phone is found to be ... Just a phone but capt claims he believed it to be a bomb, broke the law to protect lives! EU JAR and ANO allow for this.
3 The airline put capt and f/o through a CRM refresher concentrating on DM and one of the curved balls addressed was ,yes you guessed it Finding a mobile phone on board after push back.
4 The LGW chief pilot , training manager and tech manager are all good blokes?
Actually 3 and 4 aren't what ifs .
If the capt can prove he believed it could have been a bomb and that the average pilot with his training and experience may have made the same
decision , he should get away with it , IMHO see 2 and 3 above.
Mind you he may get done for littering or if the phones damaged criminal damage.
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10 year old son was on this flight using the BA Skyflyer service - which is superb.
What the Daily Mail story fails to report (!) is that selfish px not getting to the aircraft on time caused the initial delay and then the aircraft got held up by the Red Arrows needing to do their display over the Highland Show next door to the airport. The Captain gave folks on board permission to use their mobile phones at the hold point where they'd shut down. My son phoned me, I could hear all the announcements being made.
Utter disgrace by EDI ground staff - they should have gone out to the aircraft and collected the errant phone. As you know, the crew had to return to the stand for interview. It was at this point that I asked for my son to be removed from the aircraft as he'd already been sat on it for 2 hours. Plane touched down, as you know at 2430 under a new crew. I'm with the original Captain.
What the Daily Mail story fails to report (!) is that selfish px not getting to the aircraft on time caused the initial delay and then the aircraft got held up by the Red Arrows needing to do their display over the Highland Show next door to the airport. The Captain gave folks on board permission to use their mobile phones at the hold point where they'd shut down. My son phoned me, I could hear all the announcements being made.
Utter disgrace by EDI ground staff - they should have gone out to the aircraft and collected the errant phone. As you know, the crew had to return to the stand for interview. It was at this point that I asked for my son to be removed from the aircraft as he'd already been sat on it for 2 hours. Plane touched down, as you know at 2430 under a new crew. I'm with the original Captain.
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Do not think this has anything to do with ATC I am an LAE at EDI. OPS/Security at EDI are very petty minded.I feel sorry for this guy. Cabin crew did not carry out security checks as they should have.Senior hostie reported the unclaimed phone at the last minute which put the Captain in a difficult situation. I cannot see what would be wrong with the Captain dropping the phone from the sliding window. Think its a safe bet that the phone was dropped on the grass at the side of the Taxiway and not on the runway or taxiway as reported.
.
Next time the Captain will call for a full scale bomb scare. The closure of Gatwick for 5 hours whilst the BDU arrive and declare the phone safe.
And if the company & the CAA complain, then he can cite this story.
And if the company & the CAA complain, then he can cite this story.
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I cannot actually believe a more trumped up "charge" than this.
Many a time I've had skippers throw all manner of documents during pushback, sometimes a few kilos worth!
Plus just doing the maths, even if you filled the mobile with a high explosive, you would need a detonator, and you probably couldn't blow your nose with that amount!
Many a time I've had skippers throw all manner of documents during pushback, sometimes a few kilos worth!
Plus just doing the maths, even if you filled the mobile with a high explosive, you would need a detonator, and you probably couldn't blow your nose with that amount!
My take is that once a safety/security of flight issue is raised by the pilot it has to be discharged by appropriate authorities. I suspect that since mobile phones have gone together with explosive devices in the past, so that somebody in the security side of things needed to decide what was appropriate.
Since this side of the story has not been displayed in the R&N, I'll just go back to sleep.
Since this side of the story has not been displayed in the R&N, I'll just go back to sleep.
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A few years ago I was waiting for a takeoff clearance when tower called saying that a PAX from the previous leg forgot an envelope in his seat pocket with a [very, very] large amount of cash notes inside. ATC asked to taxi back to the gate; replied UNABLE but that we would try to locate the envelope. I also asked ATC to send a vehicle to the end of the runway/taxiway, they did. We found the envelope, threw it on the ground, airport staff retrieved it, everyone was happy, security was not compromised, delay was minimum, ensuing flight very pleasant. Of course all this requires some common sense and cooperation with everyone involved.
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Sadly not a lot of it around these days.
it's b/s like this not only makes the working profile more stressful and obnoxious, it also pushes more costs to the operator to absorb, while only one incident, many little issues occur everyday at mutlitudes of airports by some 'jobsworth' which piles on additional costs that damages this industry doesn't well need.
therefore, if the operator sends an invoice for the costs incurred to EDI, these pointless exercises and other operators do likewise and backing crew instead of suspending them, the activities of 'little napoleons' or those that cannot think rationally, will decrease.
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I cannot see what would be wrong with the Captain dropping the phone from the sliding window
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Plus just doing the maths, even if you filled the mobile with a high explosive, you would need a detonator, and you probably couldn't blow your nose with that amount!
It would be enough to close the airport for a few hours.
To drop or not to drop, that is NOT the question.
The question is - if ATC specifically tell you not to do something, do you disregard and do it anyway? I think it's been demonstrated there is little danger dropping presents to ground staff out the window, but how about the dangers of deliberate disregard of ATC instructions in a busy environment?
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As usual, a series of seemingly inocent circumstances have come together to cause this situation. Captain was advised by airfield ops that no-one was available at the time of the request due to an aviation display for veterans day taking place and a fly-past by Red Arrows. There were already aircraft backing up at holding point his actions seem to have made the situation even worse. As stated by clunk1001 he was aware and disregarded ATC instructions, so why people can say it is a disgrace by ground staff I cant quite understand.
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Plus just doing the maths, even if you filled the mobile with a high explosive, you would need a detonator, and you probably couldn't blow your nose with that amount!
Oh really ?
Yahya Ayyash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Oh really ?
Yahya Ayyash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
FX Guru
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As soon as people started saying mobile phones couldn't be used as bombs I thought of Ayyash.
Talk at the time was that the head of Mossad called Ayyash on the phone to wish him goodbye and sent a signal down the line to detonate it.
If a phone can take a guy's head off (as this booby-trapped phone did), it can easily blow a hole in an aircraft skin.
Talk at the time was that the head of Mossad called Ayyash on the phone to wish him goodbye and sent a signal down the line to detonate it.
If a phone can take a guy's head off (as this booby-trapped phone did), it can easily blow a hole in an aircraft skin.
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Is it known which clever soul(s) decided it was necessary
(a) to call the police, thereby using up police time/resources investigating trivia
and
(b) to refuse to allow the flight to depart, thereby inconveniencing 150+ people?
I wonder if there will be a review of whether they have sufficient judgment to perform a responsible job?
(a) to call the police, thereby using up police time/resources investigating trivia
and
(b) to refuse to allow the flight to depart, thereby inconveniencing 150+ people?
I wonder if there will be a review of whether they have sufficient judgment to perform a responsible job?
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it can easily blow a hole in an aircraft skin.
The programme mythbusters also did a segment with 'pen bombs' made using industrial high explosives which although believed could fatally injure a human, were not actually powerful enough to even cut a foam mannequin in half so I think it would be extremely unlikely to destroy an aircraft in flight.