Passengers on jumbo terror flight to sue BA

[Janeee]

Picture the scene. Captain is on his break and is asleep in the bunk, situated behind the flight deck on the 400. Two pilots are on the flight deck. One of these two decides to go for a wander. Is there anything in FCO that determines how much time the second pilot can spend away from the flight deck, and how far away from the flight deck is the second pilot allowed to go? Can the 2nd pilot go for a pee on the upper deck only or is it ok for him/her to be away for a good 20 minutes or so and do a full walk about of the aircraft? This is a serious question because I have on many occasions questioned flight crew members who do this and they tell me it is perfectly acceptable. Is it?

[Hand Solo]

The 2nd pilot had gone to speak to the passengers seated in window seats near one wing to explain that a flap fairing (I believe) was missing and this was perfectly acceptable. I understand the flight had departed in darkness and as the sun was now rising it would have been their first opportunity to see the missing part.

[btmtdi]

Arkroyal

you are spot on regarding the Saving Private Ryan opening sequence - that put just about every pain I have ever had into clear perspective - mind you if I was forced to watch the rest of the film again I would consider sueing whoever was responsible for mental cruelty.

Hiya Tudor, well said too !

The Flying Librarian

[Human Factor]

Practicing unusual attitude recoveries in the 777 sim recently, we tried to get it into the same attitude that the Nairobi 747 reached - and couldn't!

Fantastic job guys!

[Arkroyal]

and 'Wino' isn't even an anagram for 'Prat'. Should be

[Wino]

No Virgin and Arkroyal, this is not an anti "British" thing.

This is a common sense thing, and we have had this arguement before. Long before that case we had this arguement in Rumours and News and I said with nutters that are out there today, it is negligent to leave the cockpit door unlocked. I have very much been there, done that, have the tee shirt.

I was the captain of a Flying Colours A320 from Khania-Manchester that had a nutter break into the cockpit over Venice Italy. This was during the summer of 99. John Swindells was convicted in crown court of an Affray and other charges in a plea bargain.

By just calling me anti british, you just prove that you don't have a valid counter arguement. The threat had been ably demonstrated many times in the past, and the failure to do anything about a known safety issue is NEGLIGENT, no different than failing to inspect an aircraft, do a preflight, flying straight through a thunderstorm etc.

Have you ever flown straight through a thunderstorm? Probably not, though you may have by accident and nothing happened. You might even do it many times and nothing will happen to you, but sooner or later it will because there is danger in those clouds. Nutters are an increasing problem world wide, a side effect of the continuing lowering of the cost of flying in real dollars. When Only the Ultra wealthy were flying, the chance of a nutter was relatively small. Now that everyone flies, combined with in inability to commit crazy people (just medicate, release em) means its a real risk. Failing to take precautions against a known, and easily dealt with risk is Negligence.

If called by council that is exactly what I would testify to on the stand. I have yet to hear an effective counter arguement other than "but I like showing kids the cockpit." Trouble with that is that a BA ticket is for transportation, not entertainment.

You can continue the personal attacks that detract from your weak arguement now.

Cheers
Wino

[Flying Lawyer]

Wino
The UK courts would not find the pilots negligent for leaving the cockpit door unlocked.
Post 9/11, or even post the Nairobi incident, arguably a little less clear.
I know little about US Federal law so can't comment on the position in the US.

[Wino]

Now suppose I was able to demonstrate a long list of incidents with crazy pax that BA managment knew about, and point out a simple solution that was already installed on the aircraft? In my case the request for the Police went through Speedbird London. I am sure that if I subpoened the BA records many many interesting cases would turn up. I probably wouldn't even have to do that, just a search of the London Times archives would probably be good enough. The flaw in your arguement is that nutter over nairobi was the first case. It most certainly was not. Just because BA keeps it out of the news (its bad for business don't you know) doesn't mean that they haven't known about the problem for a long long time.

Seams a bit like tobacco litigation at that point, alot like Tabacco execs saying that Nicotine isn't addictive and cigarrettes don't cause cancer.

As to the rest of your post, I didn't say EVERYONE in England loved Hitler or even most did. Chamberlain was most certainly swindled by him to cheers of thousands, something which cost the lives of millions of people. American's loved Hitler too. Charles Linberg loved him, even when confronted with the concentration camps after the war. before the war support was by no means universal for England. Powerfull men can be quite seductive.

Time Magazine made Hitler man of the year in 1938. Read the how and why from Time magazine here I just found this link looking for the peace in our times text, and liked it better as it echoed a lot of what I said (and have been bashed for) without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. This was written before the invasion of Poland and the beginning of WWII.

Cheers
Wino

[Hand Solo]

Yes but you'd need to demonstrate that these incidents occured and I've never heard of any on the company grapevine. If you know of other incidents then please share them with us. If the CAA hadn't mandated the locking of the door then BA were in compliance with all the relevant safety regulations. Doesn't seem like the strongest case for negligence.

[Wino]

I can name 3 famous ones on US airlines right off the top of my head that involved attacks on the cockpit that were slowed by the locked doors, all before the flight inquestion. As they were widely discussed here, the news definately made it to the UK. Certainly it made it into trade publications.

Southwest Airlines, where the PAX killed the nutter
America West
Alaska Air where the pilot shouted over the PA to get the pax to help them, the guy got halfway though the blowout panel

I will do some searches, but by and large these things were covered up for the longest time. It was only recently when the zero tolerance policies started that it started being publicized.

But even should nothing turn up, Things are changed because of foreign airlines as well. An Emergency AD came out against the DC-10 to modify the cargo door latches and added equalizations panels as a result of the Turkish crash when the door blew open and the floor collapsed. If an airline not under FAA jurisdiction continued to fly the aircraft unmodified inspite of a known deficiency would they not be liable?

Cheers
Wino

[Wino]

Here is a quick and dirty Google Search.
Examples will be Non US Airlines so that it can't be claimed its an American PRoblem

Example 1

1999 Japanese captain killed by nutter with kitchen knife who wanted to loop 747 around bridge. Copilot managed for force his way back into the cockpit.

A long paper on Air rage documenting numerous incidents Check the arcives on the skyrage.org website that hosted the paper. They go all the way back to 94 and though most of the pages from the incidents before the nairobi are no longer available, you see the titles and the timeframe. No problem to head to the arcives and look em up. I am sure I could prove it just based on this website if I was motivated enough (EG there was money involved)

number 3

Thats just a quick and dirty search. The resources of a lawfirm taking on BA would have no trouble taking the ball and running with it.

Cheers
WIno

[Arkroyal]

None of which proves negligence against a crew abiding by the rules in force at the time.

[Conan The Barber]

You Europeans loved Hitler

If the Europeans could have blamed only the Germans for the Holocaust, Isreal would be located in an independant province of Germany. But it was a Europe wide problem, and it still seams to be.

The dirty little secret of the Holocost that Jews have not mentioned is that it was a Europe wide problem, not just a German problem. If it was only the Germans then only the German Jews would have died. It was the locals from each country that identified and assisted in rounding up the Jews that made the Holocost possible.

I happen to think what is going on in france and across Europe is a lot like Krystal Nacht.

[Wino]

ArkRoyal.

But it is negligence of the airline.

And that is all I ever said in my post. I did not single out the crew. BA, nor have the plaintiffs I believe. The checks are being written by British Airways.

When an airplane crashes because maintenance was done wrong, it isn't the flight crew that was negligent, it is the Airline. If the Mechanics followed the procedures that were dangerous and incorrect the mechanics aren't necesarily negligent either.

The crew did a good job. British Airways and their policies regarding the cockpit door are negligent.

Cheers
Wino

[Wino]

Way to go Conan, that's not only out of context, THERE IS NO CONTEXT. I am not Anti British because I disagree with one area of policy/history. But by your own logic you have just proved yourself to be Antisemetic/Anti Israel because you disagree with Israel's policy. Or is this more European Hypocracy? That is what I primarily attack. So Conan will you admit that you are anti-semitic Anti Jew Anti Israel? If You accuse me of anti-Brit it must be because in your own mind and experience you are unable to seperate a disagreement over a policy with a disagreement with a people. What a sad sad world you must live in.

Anway, to save cutting and posting excessively I will refer to your snips as 1 through 4

Point 1

I also said in various places that American's loved Hitler. That doesn't mean that All American's or Brits loved Hitler, but boy did they Cheer for Neville Chamberlain when he said Hitler was a man of Honor, and later when he stepped of the plane and said "Peace in our Time." Time Magazine made Hitler man of the Year for 1938.

Point 4

This was a response to Hugmonster claiming that Jenin was like the Warsaw ghetto when nothing could be further from the truth, (Its okay Hugmonster I forgive you for that , you were simply taken in by the notoriously biased press that was still claiming 1000 dead in Janin, a figure I knew was rediculous, and has since shown to be so, as I was suckered when I first went to the west bank insupport of the Intefada before I found it inperson what you are fed on Sky/CNN/BBC was antiIsrael lies and crap.) to which I responded about the waves of Antisemetic attacks flooding across France and Europe culiminating in the German Police telling the jews "Not to dress Jewish," Which really was like Krystal Nacht, right down to the German police telling the Jews how to dress.


Point 2 and 3 I will respond to with George Wills from todays newspaper which happened to have a topically editorial on just this subject, it is simply easier to do that then re run the threads where I proved all my charges... People should run to Jetblast and read it all though, it is informative. Anyway, on to George Will

ANTI-SEMITISM'S BOOM




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



May 2, 2002 -- SUCH is the richness of European culture, even its decadence is creative. Since 1945, it has produced the truly remarkable phenomenon of anti-Semitism without Jews. How does Europe do that?
Now, it offers Christian anti-Semitism without the Christianity. An example of this is the recent cartoon in La Stampa - a liberal Italian newspaper - depicting the infant Jesus in a manger, menaced by an Israeli tank and saying "Don't tell me they want to kill me again." This reprise of that hardy perennial, Jews as Christ-killers, clearly still strikes a chord in contemporary Italy, where the culture is as secular as a supermarket.

In Britain, the climate created by much of the intelligentsia, including the elite press, is so toxic that the Sun, a tabloid with more readers than any other British newspaper, recently was moved to offer a contrapuntal editorial headlined "The Jewish faith is not an evil religion." Contrary to what Europeans are encouraged to think.

And Ron Rosenbaum, author of the brilliant book "Explaining Hitler," acidly notes the scandal of European leaders supporting the Palestinians' "right of return" - the right to inundate and eliminate the state created in response to European genocide - "when so many Europeans are still living in homes stolen from Jews they helped murder."

It is time to face a sickening fact that is much more obvious today than it was 11 years ago when Ruth R. Wisse asserted it. In a dark and brilliant essay in Commentary magazine, she argued that anti-Semitism has proved to be "the most durable and successful" ideology of the ideology-besotted 20th century.

Successful? Did not Hitler, the foremost avatar of anti-Semitism, fail? No, he did not. Yes, his 1,000-year Reich fell 988 years short. But its primary work was mostly done. Hitler's primary objective, as he made clear in words and deeds, was the destruction of European Jewry.

Wisse, who in 1991 was a professor of Yiddish literature at McGill University and who now is at Harvard, noted that many fighting faiths, including socialism and communism, had arisen in the 19th century to "explain and to rectify the problems" of modern society.

Fascism soon followed. But communism is a cold intellectual corpse. Socialism, born and raised in France, is unpersuasive even to the promiscuously persuadable French: The socialist presidential candidate has suffered the condign humiliation of failing to qualify for this Sunday's runoff, having been defeated by an anti-Semitic "populist" preaching watery fascism.

Meanwhile, anti-Semitism is a stronger force in world affairs than it has been since it went into a remarkably brief eclipse after the liberation of the Nazi extermination camps in 1945. The United Nations, supposedly an embodiment of lessons learned from the war that ended in 1945, is now the instrument for lending spurious legitimacy to the anti-Semites' war against the Jewish state founded by survivors of that war.

Anti-Semitism's malignant strength derives from its simplicity - its stupidity, actually. It is a primitivism which, Wisse wrote, makes up in vigor what it lacks in philosophic heft, and does so precisely because it "has no prescription for the improvement of society beyond the elimination of part of society." This howl of negation has no more affirmative content than did the scream of the airliner tearing down the Hudson, heading for the World Trade Center.

Today many people say that the Arabs and their European echoes would be mollified if Israel would change its behavior. People who say that do not understand the centrality of anti-Semitism in the current crisis. This crisis has become the second - and final? - phase of the struggle for a "final solution to the Jewish question."

As Wisse said 11 years ago, and as cannot be said too often, anti-Semitism is not directed against the behavior of the Jews but against the existence of the Jews.

If the percentage of the world's population that was Jewish in the era of the Roman Empire were Jewish today, there would be 200 million Jews. There are 13 million.

Five million are clustered in an embattled salient on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, facing hundreds of millions of enemies. Ron Rosenbaum writes, "The concentration of so many Jews in one place - and I use the word 'concentration' advisedly - gives the world a chance to kill the Jews en masse again."

Israel holds just one one-thousandth of the world's population, but holds all the hopes for the continuation of the Jewish experience as a portion of the human narrative. Will Israel be more durable than anti-Semitism? Few things have been.






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So Conan, though you cut and spliced nicely, you did nothing to prove that I am Anti-British. I await your apology.




Cheers
Wino

[Hand Solo]

But BA operated that flight in accordance with the regulations of the CAA which do not stipulate the door must be locked, ergo if there is any negligence its on the part of the CAA for approving that type of operation.

[Wino]

Is there any area where BA's operations are more restrictive than the CAA?

The regulations are not a substitute for good judgment and due diligence. I am sure there are some area's of BA's ops manuals that are more restrictive than the law. If BA can make a policy in the interest of safety that is more restrictive in other areas, why did it not do so here? Seams pretty negligent, especially if a lawyer gets up and proves that they SPENT money for safety in other areas, and couldn't do this simple little free thing of locking the already installed door. You lock to door when you go to the crapper don't you? The lives of all the pax ought to be worth atleast as much as your dignity....

Cheers
Wino

[Wino]

Actually I have been fairly consistant throughout my PPrune times all the way back to AVSIG where this all started.

If you had met me at the Ash Bash you would realize that what you see is what you get.

Since my airrage case I have reversed position on the locked door, an open door with flightdeck visits was something that I thought was neat when I was first flying for airworld. By the time Flying Colours came along and the nutter broke into the cockpit I realized it simply wasn't worth the risk. I realized that more aircraft were diverting for Pax problems then were diverting for Engine failures. Most airline pilots will go their entire career now without an engine failure. Pax problems, seams to happen all the time. We go to great lengths to address engine failures, but because we like showing off where we work we have buried our head in the sand about security of the cockpit. Interstingly we have found a second good thing to come out of 9/11. The world has woken up and realize the cockpit is to be defended now starting with locking the door, and people have realized that terrorism is wrong.


Oh, and as a lawyer, am I totally out in left field on the negligence thing? If so why is BA shelling out so much money? I admit that I don't know that much about British law, though going to crown court in Manchester to put swindells away was good fun. However, much of American law is rooted in British law so my concepts must not be too far. Please tell me the flaws in my arguement. And make sure to take into to account the vagaries of a jury which are known to go for some really wild theories...

You don't have to like me, the truth is often unpleasant.

Cheers
Wino

[Flying Lawyer]

Wino makes one valid point. Compliance with the relevant Regulations would not, on its own , be a defence to a negligence claim. However, it's a very good starting point and would not, of course, be the only defence.
I've already said that, in my opinion, the UK courts would not regard this BA crew as negligent in leaving the door unlocked. Nor, in my opinion, would they find BA negligent.

Why have BA (apparently) paid compensation to the passengers?
I don't know; I'm not advising BA in this particular matter.
Why do airlines in general often pay compensation when they have a perfectly good defence to a claim?
Commercial decision. They and their insurers balance the cost of settling a claim against the cost of fighting it. SOP for most major companies and insurers these days:
Is the claim an obvious 'try on', or one which will be pursued if we don't offer something?
If the latter, how much will it cost us to get rid of it without admitting liability, compared with the legal and personnel costs of preparing and fighting it?
Airlines, and other 'media sensitive' companies, also take into account the inevitable publicity if the case is contested in court. The British Press seem to love knocking the aviation industry - and lawyers!

Wino
The above is merely my (legal) opinion upon some of the points raised. It may be wrong. Whether you accept or reject it is a matter of complete indifference to me. I've read (with a mixture of amusement and amazement) a number of threads in which others have tried, without success, to hold a reasoned debate with you. I have neither the time nor the inclination to try.
Thank you for reminding me to take into account the vagaries of the jury system. However, in the UK, the case would be heard and decided by a Judge, not by a jury.

[Wino]

Now if a US pax bought a ticket through code share (One world alliance forexample) which is effectively the wet leasing of atleast a few seats if not the entire aircraft would it be a US or a british court that would hear it?

As an international flight on a US carrier (atleast the seat in question) would they then not be defined by a combination of US law and the warsaw agreements on international travel that limit total liability in every way except punative (hence the need to go for negligence?)

And flying lawyer, on the threads of Israel I have more direct knowledge of some of what went on than most of the people argueing with me. What they learned from BBC and other indirect heresay sourceswas not going to convince me from what I learned with my two eyes. Something which has served me well as the details of the Israeli occupation have come to light and Arab propaganda is being progressively exposed for what it is. The problem is that everyone remembers the wildassed claims made in the heat of conflict, not the facts later.

Cheers
Wino