JAL pilot gets 20-day suspension for letting flight attendant sit in his seat in cockpit

"The attendant placed her hands on the control bars while being photographed, but that action posed no danger to safety as the aircraft was under the autopilot system at that time, according to the officials.

No danger? Isnt that exactly how an Aeroflot plane crashed? The pilot let his son do exactly the same thing whilst taking photos.

 

Funny, when this first hit the news almost everyone here was saying how unsafe and unprofessional the pilot was and that they'd never fly JAL again etc. etc.

Now everyone is saying what's the big deal? What has changed everyones mind in the interim, or is this just a different crowd to a few months ago when this happened?

 

maybe they forgot they were supposed to bash JAL as its a Japanese company.

someone mentioned aeroflot. the problem was that was they accidentally took it off autopilot.

 

No wonder there are so many preventable accidents in the world with people like these around. When you're the captain of a plane, or in any situation where death is the possible outcome of any mistakes, you don't play around with safety. I too was in a cockpit on a European flight years ago but I didn't sit in the pilot's seat, but I think even then, before 9/11, it shouldn't have been aloud. It doesn't take much in such a highly sensitive environment to trigger disaster. You can't predict what stupid things other people are going to do suddenly, but you're responisble for their actions.

 

So why did the dude get punished? They said it themselves posed no danger to safety.

 

I admire JAL´s uncompromising decision to give this warning to both pilot and co-pilot. For those who are against: maybe you have heard about that Russian airliner that crashed because pilot let his son sit behind the "control bar". In an airliner every second could become border between life and death and if anything happened ( unexpected severe turbulence or something ) I believe pilot can do something about it while the stewardess or the little kid can not. If you do not mind flying planes without pilot seated in his pilot-seat, I do.

 

The punishment is lenient compared to some companies.
I know a case where rank reduction for twelve months was the punishment.
That is expensive humiliating and remains on record.

eresay you are correct.
An Aeroflot airplane crashed and all on board were killed because the pilot allowed his son to to pretend to steer an aircraft on autopilot.The autopilot tripped and eventually the aircraft got into an uncontrollable situation that created g forces that prevented the Capatain from getting back to his seat to take control.

In reality the risk is very vey small but on the wrong day what can go wrong does and that crash was an example.

Airlines take a conservative view in most cases and JAL were bound to act once they found out.

Stranger things have happened a flight attendant sat on the centre console of a Boeing and put full roll trim (aileron) in because she activated the trim switch-the autopilot compensated. When it was disconnected the airplane rolled violently but without any fatal consequences.

The only persons allowed to occupy control seats and touch anything are currently licensed crew members.

 

Capatain sounds great I meant Captain Mein Damen und Herren

 

Being a crewmember of a Commercial Airlines airship she should have known better than to do it also. Did she get an unpaid suspension as well? I hope so. The pilot for being captain of the ship gets 20 days she should at least get 7 as well.

 

I'm surprised he didn't say he was drunk. Everyone else in authority uses it as an excuse and gets away with it.

 

but I would hope the JAL pilots aren't drinking booze!

Why was the guy punished? Because it's a violation of the rules, gogo. As has been pointed out, when Murphy wants to be sadistic then having the wrong person at the controls can turn into a disasterous sequence of events.

Why did they do it? Most air crews serve together fairly regularly and the normal work rapport developes. They probably all thought it was harmless fun and nobody would find out.

But now that they have I agree with nisegaijin - damn I want to see those pics!

 

This is 2007 and this pilot is a liability.
No pilot should be allowed to continue to fly
if that pilot compromises the safety of any
aircraft and/or its passengers or crew at any time.

 

At the facility I run, we have a computer system that we use to maintain a satellite's orbit. We have visitors in all the time that think it is pretty cool to "fly" a satellite. But I would never, EVER, let someone sit at the console and actually send commands to it. The risk, although small, is just not worth it....There's no such thing as harmless fun in certain lines of work.

So for these situations, we have a joystick hooked up to nothing that people can "fly" with (and we do not use a joystick, just fancy computers). They get a kick out of it when we explain that is what we do, "fly" it with a joystick. Those that have no clue really believe it.

Smichael888: We had a situation quite a few years ago (not my facility) where someone that was unqualified sent the wrong commands to a satellite and the thing drifted and it took quite a bit of fuel to bring it back, on top of turning off some transponders). That cost a guy some time in jail, and years of life off of the spacecraft (lots of money lost there). No real harm, but there are things that should be left to trained professionals only.

I would like to see those pictures, though.......:)

ciao

 

Sounds like an interesting job with a lot of responsibility.
i agree some things are best left to trained professionals because the results of a mistake are costly in one way or another.

I would like to see the pics too:)

 

Here is some Internet "advice" from http://www.ehow.com/how_2000623_use-airliner-autopilot.html

Make sure the autopilot is engaged at all times.
Do not disconnect the autpilot. This can be done by hitting the autopilot disconnect button on the autopilot pannel, or by excessive control movement.
DO NOT touch the flight controls.

So if Ms Pilot-for-a-minute stood up and gripped the yoke for support -- oops, scratch one triple 7!