Capt. fired by fax
 

Saw a tv report in Germany in the hotel lobby just before pick up.
Didn´t quite get it so asked one of the Germans next to me who was also watching.

He explained that the capt. has been fired because he returned to Paris after loosing a generator instead of to continue to Tunesia.
Aircraft was an A300 of Flyair and the capt. a contract pilot from Europe.

Anybody knows more?
:ouch:

News report in English:

Pilot sacked for taking precautionary measures

Come on now, we need a few more responses to this hideous deed by the Turks. With all the past happenings, don't you think that people are getting worried about flying to their holiday destinations. Especially, when a pilot does the right thing and then is canned.

If the other engine driven generator, and the APU gen were serviceable, and there were no other compounding factors, a loss of 1 generator is hardly a reason to turnback, or divert, imho.

Read the link, Kaptin - it intimates that a 'fuel leak and numerous other defects' were found on the aircraft. Absolutely abominable treatment of a professional who, IMHO seems to have done the right thing. Maybe the genny snag was the last straw in a host of deferred minor defects - who knows?

16B

The article's reference to "further problems" (including a fuel tank leak), allegedly subsequently discovered upon inspection on the plane at Orly, may well relate to another incident of the same airline that happened a few days later at CDG. A (different) Fly Air A300 was stopped by the authorities before a flight to Turkey, reportedly found with wrong tyres and a small fuel leak.

The Orly incident made the news earlier, mainly due to the passengers' refusal to reboard the plane.

So one pilot was sacked by fax. Chickenfeed! The late unlamented Lord King and his fellow reptiles managed, with no prior announcement, to illegally sack 330 DanAir pilots at a televised press conference, aided greatly by the connivance of the BALPA, an outfit with no moral scruples whatsoever. Was this an aviation record?

>>Was this an aviation record?

Seems like a larger bunch of pilots resigned by fax in 1989. You can still find many of them doing contract work throughout Asia and the Middle East...

A record for illegal unnannounced sackings, not voluntary resignations.

Well if nobody else is saying it – Fly Air ought to be blacklisted right there.
The reason is not the fact that the ship had some technical problems. They can and will occur.
The reason is not the notification to the skipper being fired by fax –although tasteless.
A captain is the first, last and only authority in flight. That some bean counter has the cojones to question a captains decision in what he deemed a safety relevant issue over revenue shows where their priority lays. Therefore, Fly Air ought to be blacklisted.

N380UA
 

Very well said...:ok:

Whilst it may or may not be acceptable for somebody to be sacked for disregarding company policy, surely the two most reprehensible things are firstly that he wasn't respected for putting safety first, and secondly that he was apparently not given the chance to explain himself.

Surely, at the very least he should have been hauled in front of the chief pilot (even if he was THEN sacked).


I'm sure that there's far more to the story than we can read here, but if the story in the link is close to being correct, I'm firmly with N380UA. I hope that the fellow rapidly finds new employment with a more conscientious airline.

G

As a bean-counter I think the above is rubbish. Who said the bean-counter fired the captain.

We bean-counters count beans and tell management how many beans they have. Management defines and implements policy, not bean-counters.

I agree that the company should be black-listed.

Excuse me, maybe I am picking nits, but what does 'company policy' mean exactly? This includes safety / technical issues? That is absurd!

Presumably company policy includes an MEL.

A question I'd be interested to hear answered would be (a) was he within the MEL, and (b) how similar is the company MEL and Airbus' MMEL?

G

Company policy??
 

Any business needs to decide on its objectives and how it will fulfill them. It has to make choices and it will decide a set of policies to follow in order to help the decision-making process so that everybody knows which way to go.

Ryanair's objectives and related policies are not those of BA.

Ryanair has chosen not to do a whole raft of things to be able to provide lower fares. Ryanair provides no in-flight food and only sandwiches and warm beer. BA seems to have a policy of having only one main i-f food supplier who can bring its whole operation to a grinding halt!

On a more serious note, some airlines have a policy of taking every modification and update provided by the manufacturer and fitting it to the existing aircraft - others do not.

If you buy a s/h jumbo from BA built ten years ago, you will get a plane with all the latest equipment with the airframe of a plane 10 years old. If you buy a ten year old jumbo from a black african airline, that is what you will get - a plane with everything 10 years old. Please do not blame the black-bean-counters.

Which aircraft will be safer?

Hope that helps.

@Genghis
 

It still rests with the commander to refuse an aircraft, even if MEL would allow it.

Absolutely - but having declined to fly (or on occasion, elected to fly) any commander must expect to have to explain and defend that decision. The MEL is certainly significant to that explanation.

G

Surely the MEL only applies prior to dispatch, inflight reference is primarily the Boeing Quick Reference Handbook (QRH) or other manufacturer's equivalent?

As with most of these stories we are probably only hearing half the facts.

LX-GB1

You are right of course. The bean counter didn’t actually execute the firing of the skipper. But:

The BC will tell the management that the return of the flight to Paris, lose of rev. lose of image, initial maintenance, ferry flight to Djerba, further maintenance, a/c downtime and repositioning to the line will cost so-and-so many kUSD. And its all the captains fault. All of this is obviously not in keeping with the objectives set by the business.

G

I don’t have the Fly Air's MEL but the CAAs MMEL can be found online.
Haven't hade the chance to read it up though.


A300 MMEL