Pilot in Voyager tanker dive to be court martialled

a reply to: howmuch4another

My father had a B-52 pilot beat a court martial for abandoning the aircraft. He didn't lie about it, but he never flew again and ended up a maintenance officer somewhere.

a reply to: Zaphod58

from my experience in this forum you have a hellova book to write someday

a reply to: howmuch4another

Ha! I would need a really really really good ghostwriter.

originally posted by: DAVID64
Jesus. Can you imagine that? You are so far nose down, you're trying to fight for control with your feet on the ceiling.
What the hell was Captain Selfie doing during all this?

he was shooting a macro shot of a fly's testicles that landed on the instrument panel

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: NoCorruptionAllowed

Probably. I've seen some pretty good screw ups where nothing happened to the people involved. We had a T-33 land gear up, because the crew was talking about their plans for the weekend. They admitted it, the aircraft was repaired, and they were flying again in a couple of weeks.

A B-1 landed gear up in Diego Garcia after the crew was suffering Gethomeitis and forgot to put the gear down. Both pilots were flying again within a few weeks, the copilot after his back healed up.

There's your key here. Many times if a pilot/crew royally screw up, but admit it, take responsibility, and let themselves become an example of what not to do in order so the situation won't be repeated by someone else, they will be forgiven and put back into flying status. Those who try to lie their way out of it have zero chance.

For example, the crew of the Northwest Airbus that landed at Ellsworth AFB a few years ago went to a Northwest evaluation board that would determine if they remained with the airline or had their licenses stripped by the FAA. Both the Captain and FO decided to try to lie their way out of admitting fault and were promptly fired. If they told the truth Northwest would have retained and defended them.

a reply to: justwanttofly

With all the tools investigators have at hand now, trying to lie about it is the absolute dumbest thing you can possibly do.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: C0bzz

It's not a black and white issue. But any pilot who carries a camera into the cockpit is risking disaster. I've had aircraft that were delayed, and we damn near had to yank the seat out because a pilot was changing the batteries in his camera and dropped one. The potential for cockpit FOD is extremely high. But at the same time, cameras like the GoPro that can be strapped to helmets and operated safely, are less of a risk, and they can look the other way.

All that said, this pilot flat out lied to investigators, and this incident would have never happened if he had been more careful, and paid more attention. He deserves a court martial.

I hear you on that. I have removed coins, pens and god knows what else from cockpit seat tracks and the inside of instrument panels.
Passenger cabins are even worse, cant count the number of munched iphones/ipods from seat tracks and actuators. I once spent over 6hrs removing an ipod dropped by its owner down the sidewall at the rear of a 737 because our tech services people weren't happy with with it being so close to some equipment if left there. In short its becoming a real issue, we recently had an onboard fire when a phone got crushed in a seat.

However, are we not making the problem worse by insisting that pilots now carry pads and phones for communications and such things as Jepp charts and flight plans? Its only a matter of time before we see a similar trickle down of technology into some military cockpits.

a reply to: thebozeian

Yes and no. Yes, in that if they are dropped and crushed, as you pointed out they could start a fire or cause an incident. No, in that there is less potential FOD in the cockpit, because they aren't carrying maps, pens, pencils, and other assorted sources of potential FOD anymore.