There is an important issue that must be taken into account on this topic, (and I assume it has played a paramount role on the court ruling decision): this particular crew was involved on an aircraft accident in which CRM was a factor – “CRM principles were not evident during this event”, it is stated in the accident report under Conclusions Evidence.

Although this evidence finding was not developed nor any recommendation elaborated on it (a clear “gap” on the report, on my own opinion) what would anyone with management responsibilities on the company would do?

The answer looks clear to me…

I spent all my career working in 'small' companies where we flew with the same Skipper / FO combinations very, very regularly.

During those years, my own experience was that there were good pairings and bad pairings, for a whole variety of reasons ( personality, history, culture and others ) and that a night working in a 'bad' pairing was a horrible night's work.

Same for a husband / wife pairing I suppose - some days or nights would be better than normal, some worse than normal, all depending on what's been going on during the two or three hours together before Report Time.

But I'll have to say - I'd find it difficult working with wife / son / daughter in a cockpit environment if my family are anything to go by and we class ourselves as normal....

I have flown together with both my brother and my wife many times, and find this a absolute non-issue.
Like Luke says; if anything, we tried harder to be professional when we flew together.

My outfit has several husband+wife pilots. Some choose to fly together, others avoid it. There have been issues on a few occations, with one h+w disallowed to fly together for the last couple of years.

In some cases the wife is senior i.e. the Captain. Now how about that...

Actually, of the few married pilot couples I know, a common scenario is that the wife was a flying student of the husband at one time. Years later the wife gets hired by the airline but the husband can't even get an interview. 'The curse of the white male' as one of my female colleagues puts it. Women and other underrepresented demographics are actively recruited and often hired with much lower experience levels than 'majority' applicants.

In more than one case I can cite, the wife goes to work in the training department and eventually is able to help get the husband an interview and a job.

I know of a couple who were divorced and flew together once or twice. I would have thought that would have made for an interesting crew, but he said there were no problems.
I flew with my son a couple of times, we had a great trip with no problems and I was a very proud dad!:)

Unless the girlfriend was working in the cabin it should not be a problem flying with the wife ?

Isn't the unspoken issue at hand professionalism?

I'm wondering if the relevant issue may be the airline's exposure to litigation in the event of an accident, given lawyers ability to make mountains out of molehills.

are you serious? or are you trying to be flippant?

I do believe recceguy was indulging in a spot of irony ;)

Thanks, I was trying to work that out too!

I seem to remember that Air UK employed and rostered together an Iranian captain and an Iraqi first officer around the time of or not long after the Iran/Iraq war. Don't think there were any problems.

Here is the acc. report.

http://www.gpiaa.gov.pt/upload/membr...os/i006503.pdf

One thing I find interesting in context to the courts ruling:

Interesting you should mention that.
Recollect having a beer or three in HK with that combination, but both captains, as they indulged in some mil humour about what would have happened had they met.
Actually would have been little doubt; one was Hercs and the other fighters.

Think I read somewhere a few weeks ago that Thomson jigged their rosters around a bit so a father and son could crew a 787 before the father retired, may even have been for his last flight. Lovely story I thought.

As a passenger (self loading cargo)

If I knew, I would like to have a Man and Wife in the cockpit that would do everything to prevent either one being hurt as this would of course extend to all others on the aircraft. What the hell is the problem?????

I'm sure sometime, somewhere, there has been a tanker captain who was the wife of a receiving thirsty fighter pilot. That scenario could lead to interesting anecdotes.

The original incident:

Accident: Sata A313 at Ponta Delgada on Mar 2nd 2013, tail strike on landing

The problem is/was not their relationship, but the fact that they paired for 85% of their flights. Trust & familiarity inevitably leads to complacency and relaxed monitoring, regardless of relationship. Being paired with a competent stranger is the safest combination, as both sides will be alert to what the other is doing.