Two BA pilots questioned about mobile phone incident
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It is unfortunately very easy for a competent and experienced individual to lose the plot when they come up against bloody minded and ill educated under achieving idiots such as those at EDI who turned a minor problem in to something much more. Furthermore Who was the prick who called the police?.
Trouble pasting the 'link' , for some reason it scrambles it into something useless, so I will spread it out a bit - type this as a regular URL ...........
www.
nzherald
.co
.nz
and find Sideswipe, ( usually near the bottom of the left hand side ) open the one that starts with a comment about Sideswipe Extra - Something for the Weekend - and scroll down to the Ansett "Keys" advert at the bottom and play that - and yes, I do remember it !
QED. ( Hint - car keys are dropped out of the cockpit window as being All Part Of The Ansett Service - Great !)
If the page has changed, find the Sideswipe section and select this from the list of back numbers, it was posted on Friday 8th July.
www.
nzherald
.co
.nz
and find Sideswipe, ( usually near the bottom of the left hand side ) open the one that starts with a comment about Sideswipe Extra - Something for the Weekend - and scroll down to the Ansett "Keys" advert at the bottom and play that - and yes, I do remember it !
QED. ( Hint - car keys are dropped out of the cockpit window as being All Part Of The Ansett Service - Great !)
If the page has changed, find the Sideswipe section and select this from the list of back numbers, it was posted on Friday 8th July.
Last edited by ExSp33db1rd; 9th Jul 2011 at 08:56.
Security has importance: it's currently about No. 79 on my list, below all the other things that are much more likely to kill me and my passengers and which I have some measure of control over.
I agree with previous posters that aeroplanes are failing to blow up in midair not because of super security but because those with the means to make this happen do not wish to make it so at the moment. This may not be particularly comforting but the present state of aviation "security" does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.
The same authorities that invent all these rules in the name of safety are trying to increase the duty hours and reduce rest between trips, possibly to as little as seven hours. Does it matter if you're killed by a bomb or by somebody forgetting the flaps, overrunning on a contaminated surface, meeting an unexpected mountain, stalling an aircraft into the ground, etc.? The latter examples are by far the most common causes of death and destruction yet have probably <1% of the money and time spent on training / rectification and the rest goes on the security obsession.
Aviation security has become a massive industry and exponents of it should be treated with the same scepticism normally reserved for oil companies, banks and pharmaceutical manufacturers. They are never going to argue for less security, even if it was warranted.
Coming back the original subject, IMHO the most dangerous part of this whole episode would have been the distraction of dealing with this incident if they had gone flying shortly afterwards. This is when mistakes are most likely to be made and critical errors / omissions by pilots are the things that are most likely to kill you (and I say this as an airline pilot).
I agree with previous posters that aeroplanes are failing to blow up in midair not because of super security but because those with the means to make this happen do not wish to make it so at the moment. This may not be particularly comforting but the present state of aviation "security" does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.
The same authorities that invent all these rules in the name of safety are trying to increase the duty hours and reduce rest between trips, possibly to as little as seven hours. Does it matter if you're killed by a bomb or by somebody forgetting the flaps, overrunning on a contaminated surface, meeting an unexpected mountain, stalling an aircraft into the ground, etc.? The latter examples are by far the most common causes of death and destruction yet have probably <1% of the money and time spent on training / rectification and the rest goes on the security obsession.
Aviation security has become a massive industry and exponents of it should be treated with the same scepticism normally reserved for oil companies, banks and pharmaceutical manufacturers. They are never going to argue for less security, even if it was warranted.
Coming back the original subject, IMHO the most dangerous part of this whole episode would have been the distraction of dealing with this incident if they had gone flying shortly afterwards. This is when mistakes are most likely to be made and critical errors / omissions by pilots are the things that are most likely to kill you (and I say this as an airline pilot).
Torque Tonight
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Irrespective of a delay.Either The tower should have radioed a vehicle to collect the phone or else asked the Aircraft to return back....There is no question of creating an FOD situation.....especially by a professional sounds dumd......But then this is based on a media report so who knows the facts.
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On being given the phone the Captain's decision to make seems to me to be; is this thing a suspect IED or is it lost property? Now there will be many mobile phones on the aircraft all of which have been security screened and are accompanied by their owners so we're happy with them. This phone is unaccompanied but that should make little difference in this era of suicide bombers? Therefore treating it as lost property seems reasonable to me. If it had been discovered before push back it would undoubtedly have been treated as lost property, not sure how a delay in its discovery makes it an IED but there may be facts we don't know.
However, we could also make the other decision and treat it as a suspect IED. No procedure I know says to return to stand with a suspect IED on board, hand it to the ramp agent who will then carry it through the terminal and hand it to lost property. Nor do I know of a procedure that says chuck the IED out of the DV window either to a waiting ops person or onto the tarmac. Both of those procedures seem to be the "we all know its not really a bomb but we're slightly covering our arses" procedures.
So, decide, IED or lost property. If lost property then treat as if its a lost paperback book or similar and carry out the relevant company procedure. If IED, treat it as if its a stick of dynamite wired to some sort of detonator and carry out the company procedure for that situation. The cobbled together not really sure but bit of both procedure is how we end up in this ridiculous situation.
However, we could also make the other decision and treat it as a suspect IED. No procedure I know says to return to stand with a suspect IED on board, hand it to the ramp agent who will then carry it through the terminal and hand it to lost property. Nor do I know of a procedure that says chuck the IED out of the DV window either to a waiting ops person or onto the tarmac. Both of those procedures seem to be the "we all know its not really a bomb but we're slightly covering our arses" procedures.
So, decide, IED or lost property. If lost property then treat as if its a lost paperback book or similar and carry out the relevant company procedure. If IED, treat it as if its a stick of dynamite wired to some sort of detonator and carry out the company procedure for that situation. The cobbled together not really sure but bit of both procedure is how we end up in this ridiculous situation.
About the best post on this thread.
Sums up exactly what is wrong with the whole attitude to security.
Its like all the people arriving at security points with forgotten about bottles of water in their hand luggage. The bottles of water are confiscated because they 'might' be the ingredients to make liquid explosives on board. Then these suspect liquids are all thrown together into a bin near to the scanning point. If we really thought that the bottle might contain explosive ingredients, shouldnt the bomb squad be called each time such an item is discovered in someones bag?
Of course they aren't because everybody knows all along that its really just a bottle of water but we have to 'pretend' that it might be explosive.
Full Wings,
Your post runs a very close second.
I quite agree that the distraction caused by the harrassment of pilots by security staff as they attempt to get to their place of work represents a flight safety hazard. This screening of pilots (shoes, belts, watches off, search my bag, check inside my tie, click my pen to see if its real, etc, etc, etc) achieves, as we all know, precisely nothing.
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9 pages!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh what a sad situation we have come to, hours of police time wasted, news story's, passengers delayed without good cause and all for a situation that should have been handled with a little common sense and required one line on the bottom of the ops report.
I can't help asking of those who responded to this incident and having had time to consider in the cold light of day their actions if they think their response reflects any credit on them ?
I can't help asking of those who responded to this incident and having had time to consider in the cold light of day their actions if they think their response reflects any credit on them ?
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On the first anniversary of the American bombing of Libya, so 1987 I think, our company put a warning out to all staff to be extra vigilant.
A BAC 111 had pushed back from either Edinburgh or Glasgow, I forget which, when the cabin crew noticed a duffle bag placed in a stowage near the galley. Despite several PA's noone claimed it. The Captain was informed and she walked back in to the pax cabin, took the bag up to the flight deck, threw it out of her window to the ground staff and taxied off.
It was during the cruise that a passenger asked one of the cabin crew if they had moved the duffle bag he had carefully stowed. He said he had put it there because it contained fragile pottery samples which he was taking to London and he thought it would be safer there than in an overhead locker. He had been having a nap during the public address announcements........
The difference between that incident and the recent one is that in those days the Captain was in charge of the aircraft and made decisions accordingly which were not normally questioned. These days the security aspect has been taken out of his/her hands and given to some jobsworths who inevitably employ a bureaucratic solution that causes great inconvenience and does little to enhance safety.
A BAC 111 had pushed back from either Edinburgh or Glasgow, I forget which, when the cabin crew noticed a duffle bag placed in a stowage near the galley. Despite several PA's noone claimed it. The Captain was informed and she walked back in to the pax cabin, took the bag up to the flight deck, threw it out of her window to the ground staff and taxied off.
It was during the cruise that a passenger asked one of the cabin crew if they had moved the duffle bag he had carefully stowed. He said he had put it there because it contained fragile pottery samples which he was taking to London and he thought it would be safer there than in an overhead locker. He had been having a nap during the public address announcements........
The difference between that incident and the recent one is that in those days the Captain was in charge of the aircraft and made decisions accordingly which were not normally questioned. These days the security aspect has been taken out of his/her hands and given to some jobsworths who inevitably employ a bureaucratic solution that causes great inconvenience and does little to enhance safety.
