At least he has to stay away from aircraft. Oh the struggles those airline pilots go through. Barf! It was straight up an act of terrorism by any other standard. You and I can’t even lean our seat back anymore! https://komonews.com/news/local/jos...ett-washington-health-services-mental-health#
I’ll bet everything I own he flew many times under the influence of something too. Meanwhile old Meat can’t even smoke a joint on my own time on a weekend, CDL. As much as it sucks for his wifey and family there’s no doubt that plane crashes without the action of others, serious stuff! My guess is the loss of his career will be his only sentence, perhaps some probation.
Everyone has an excuse. If the asshat managed to kill everyone, then what? Lucky him, adjudicated in drug friendly Orygon-to-hell. I hope the Feds jug his whiney ass for at least 10 hard.
In one sense I disagree with the above statements to punish him for trying to destroy the airliner by shutting down the engines. The system worked and he was unable to harm the plane and he is now being punished in some manner, a civil affair, and will probably never pilot an airplane again, a FAA affair. There are two different issues here, one of criminal intent and the second of flight safety. That is the important point, but the elephant in the cockpit is this. If he had not tried to shut off the engines, he would have been flying an airplane as a pilot in at best a few days. He was an active pilot deadheading back to a flight station to pilot another airplane and was scheduled to pilot a 737 after he landed. If he had kept his mouth shut, napped in the jump seat, and not tried to stop the engines, he would have shortly been piloting a 737, He was a Captain in the airline with over 20 years experience. None of the boarding or flight crew noticed abnormal behavior before the incident, and his medical certificate was current and good. If he had instead experienced his mental breakdown as the pilot in charge on the 737, given the unforgiving conditions on takeoff and landing, he might have achieved his desired crash. The real problem is how many other pilots are having sleep, drug, mental, etc problems and are not being stopped. Psychotic events that occurred with Egyptian Air comes to mind as well as a crash in France by the Germanwings airplane that killed 150. Some cases call into question the actions of the pilot when the results are due to impairment rather than deliberate intentions. Lack of sleep is thought to have turned an emergency situation by Colgan Airflight in Buffalo into a fatal crash. When ice led to a near stall warning, their improper actions and over riding the built in safety precautions, lead to a full stall at low altitude and not enough altitude to recover. While we may not like it, a pilot can earn a lifetimes pay in 30 seconds in an emergency situation. Calgan Air pilots, tired, some problems with training, and flight conditions, went from fat, dumb, and happy, to dead in a minute or so. Pilot in charge pulled up nose, causing a near stall to become a full stall, copilot retracted flaps which was good for a go around, but increased the speed at which the aircraft needed to exit the stall. Plane never recovered enough airspeed to be come controllable before impact.
Well, I'm scratching my head wondering why he wasn't charged with attempted murder... I don't fly anymore if I can get out of it, the skies are simply too crowded and given how much I have flown I figure the odds are very much against me. I spent my life flying all over the world and if I have my way, I will never get on another aircraft.
