Italian Pilot Threatened to Crash Plane
 

The Times: Airline pilot threatened to kill 200 passengers if wife left him

An Italian pilot who warned his estranged wife that he would crash his passenger jet if she left him was stopped by police from taking the controls of a Rome-Japan flight minutes before it was due to take off.

Officers at Fiumicino airport were alerted by the man’s wife after he sent her a text message threatening to kill himself and the 200 passengers on board. The incident, which has been kept secret until now, occurred in January last year — two months before Andreas Lubitz, a German pilot, deliberately crashed his Germanwings A320 into the Alps, killing 149 passengers and crew.

The Italian pilot is in his 40s but has not been named. He was married with children, and already known to police in Padua, Italy, after his wife reported him for mistreatment. When she announced she was leaving him, he threatened to commit suicide. When that failed to convince her to change her mind, he sent the text saying he would kill himself as well as the passengers on his flight that night.

She immediately contacted police, who alerted officials at Fiumicino airport. A substitute pilot was given control of the flight, with the passengers left unaware of the switch.

The pilot was suspended and is still undergoing psychiatric evaluation, Italian media reported yesterday. The airline concerned has not been named.......

Right..... because there are many airlines flying from Rome to Tokyo.

Thank God for women.

We can rule out that he was not an EMB-195 pilot for Air Dolomiti

seriously, if some start killing themselves (+ pax!!) only for a woman, it is time to include psychologist tests !

Don't get paranoid Greenlights, 99.999999% of men who threaten to kill themselves because of a woman, don't!

I doubt if this pilot will get his licence back. Taking himself off duty and reporting sick through severe stress etc. then yes, possibly, when his life is sorted out, but threatening suicide and murder of the pax, no way, the airline simply cannot take the chance.

Perhaps an appropriate way to analyze what is happening here is simply that we pilots cannot race a family anymore, we spend too much time sold out to our dream job for little money considering that by the time we retire we are faced with a lonely life.

There is no psychological treatment for amputated spirits!:=

This pilot may have lost his family and most probably his job:eek:

Exactly this same situation happened in my old airline some decades ago. He was sacked, (and I don't think there was a single pilot in the company who'd flown with the man who disagreed with the company/local regulator's decision, which speaks volumes), but when he returned to his own country, (a smallish country in Western Europe), he seems to have been able to convince the locals that the wife had stitched him up. He's still flying as a captain in his home country as far as I know, and I'm pretty sure he frequents these pages.

I wonder at what point she realised that that one phonecall was the most expensive one she ever made?:ooh:

She did what was correct and what anyone should do in the same circumstances - no good mentioning it afterwards.

So she had 8 weeks of 'did I do the right thing' followed by confirmation that she did.

So, I'm going to ask: if he's still flying, as a captain, with no visible problems - Isn't it possible that's exactly what happened?

I know neither him nor her, I don't know the situation why everyone agreed with the decision to sack him, but I know some people that I would agree to sacking...

I also knew some rather vengeful women some of which I wouldn't be surprised if they pulled a stunt like that just to spite their ex.

Disclaimer: just an SLF, not that captain. ;-)

Interesting story. I too know people sufficiently devious and vengeful to make up such allegations. I also know people stupid enough to utter such threats without the slightest intention of carrying them out.

Why has nobody questioned whether or not he even said it? There are more than a few people spiteful enough to lie about such a thing, especially in a divorce situation. Just because it may not be in her financial interest to do so does not mean she may not have been blind enough to make the call without thinking it through.

It says it was a text so presumably she kept it to show police.

The RAeS will be holding a conference on how to assess pilot mental health and well-being on 9 May in London. The link below provides some interesting statistics. I think pilots will be well advised to follow these and similar discussions so as to influence the debate and achieve a result that is proportionate to the risk:-

http://aerosociety.com/News/Insight-...7c84-291876761

Having picked up her husband's mobile, she sends a text to herself stating..........reads like a bit of Hollywood screenplay ;-)

However, I rather doubt that would be the case as she would be shooting herself in the foot big time regarding post-divorce maintenance settlements....at the end of the day, 50% of naff-all is naff-all!!

If proven ...
 

That should be end of flying duties imho.

There are some boundaries that you simply do not cross.

What would the airline have done if the flight had already taken off, I wonder.