Open Thread: JetBlue Incident
March 29th, 2012I know a couple of pilots and, initially, this didn’t surprise me too much. If I was making bum change to sit in an aluminum death capsule all day and/or night, while having to be away from my family most of the time, I might lose my shit too.
But…
This gets more interesting with each passing hour, as more information trickles out.
Post anomalous information / “coincidences” in the comments below.
Loading ...Many pilots read Cryptogon. If you people have any insights on this, let us know.
Via: CBS News:
Federal prosecutors late Wednesday filed charges against the JetBlue pilot who had an apparent psychiatric episode, yelling about a bomb, telling passengers to pray, and banging on the cockpit door on a flight bound for Las Vegas a day earlier.
Clayton Frederick Osbon, 49, is charged in U.S. district court with interfering with inflight crew members, the same charge sometimes levied against unruly passengers or those who refuse to turn off electronics or comply with other instructions.
Osbon “moved through the aircraft and was disruptive and had to be subdued and forcibly restrained from re-entering the cockpit,” the criminal complaint states.
Osbon told his co-pilot that “things don’t matter” shortly after JetBlue Flight 191 from New York departed Tuesday, according to an affidavit. Court documents say Osbon told the plane’s first officer that “we’re not going to Vegas” and began what he described as a sermon.
“The (first officer) became really worried when Osbon said `we need to take a leap of faith,”‘ according to the sworn affidavit given by an FBI agent. “Osbon started trying to correlate completely unrelated numbers like different radio frequencies, and he talked about sins in Las Vegas.”
Passengers wrestled Osbon to the ground after he left the cockpit and later sprinted down the cabin yelling and urging everyone to pray. The plane made an emergency landing in Amarillo, Texas. No one on board was seriously hurt.
Mark Sellouk, one of the passengers on that flight, was interviewed by CBS News correspondent Lee Cowan about that moment up in the air.
“I’m looking at this happening,” he said, “and [Osbon’s] getting more and more violent, and now he’s starting to say, ‘Pray to Jesus,” and he started yelling inside to the flight deck, ‘Throttle to idle, throttle to idle! Bring this plain down! Al Qaeda is here!'”
Cowan asked Sellouk what was going through his mind. “I’m thinking of my family, my kids and my wife, and I’m looking at this guy,” Sellouk said. “I’m thinking, ‘This is how it’s going to end.”
Under federal law, a conviction for interference with a flight crew or attendants can bring up to 20 years in prison. The offense is defined as assaulting or intimidating the crew, interfering with its duties or diminishes its ability to do operate the plane.
The charges came as new details emerged Wednesday about the bizarre behavior Osbon exhibited during the flight, including unnecessarily fiddling with the plane’s controls and complaining of “too much noise” into the radio monitored by air traffic controllers and other pilots, CBS News investigative producer Pat Milton reports.
A source who spoke on condition of anonymity revealed new details to Milton of what happened in the cockpit before Osbon behaved erratically and was subdued in the cabin by passengers of Flight 191 between New York and Las Vegas. Osbon was taken into FBI custody in Amarillo, Texas, after the plane made an emergency landing there.
In addition to complaining about the noise into the radio, Osbon also said to “keep the chatter down.” CBS News’ Carter Yang reports that Osbon was improperly pressing buttons on the flight panel and “speaking incoherently” in the cockpit, according to a source.
JetBlue said Wednesday that Osbon “has been removed from active duty” pending an investigation involving multiple federal and local agencies, Yang reports.
Osbon has been a pilot for JetBlue since 2000. The company’s CEO and president Dave Barger told NBC’s “Today” show that Osbon is a “consummate professional” whom he has “personally known” for years.
After high school, I was on track to become a commercial pilot. It didn’t take long for the reality to set in. The chances that I would ever fly any serious commercial jet would be decades in the future, if at all.
Airlines look for people with tens of thousands of hours in the air. Your commercial “ticket” (license) can get you doing commuter runs with tiny airlines only a handful of people even know exist.
The people who have enough air time and experience to fly the larger planes are ex-military, or national guard pilots.
The pay is absolute crap. At the time, you were looking at making $20k/yr, doing the same routes every day. Basically, a bus driver, with just about the same pay rate. That, except you can’t pull your bus over just anywhere if there’s a problem.
It’s an acceptable solution to ex-military pilots, who are living on their military pension.
Now, for this pilot, and his psychotic break.. High stress jobs, with some sort of underlying condition, can make people snap. PTSD, TIA, a little too much LSD before the flight, or just a touch of the bat-shit crazies. We aren’t in a position to judge. Statistically, in any sufficiently large group, you will have people of all types.
That is one of my biggest disagreements with the whole locked cockpit rule. Traditionally, if there was a problem in the cockpit, the flight crew could enter the cockpit and rectify it. For example, the fight a few years ago that overshot the airport by a couple hundred miles because they weren’t paying attention.
In a worst case scenario (both pilot and copilot were incapacitated), there’s a good chance that someone on the plane would know enough to be able to set it down safely. There are an awful lot of retired military flyers and private pilots, who understand the mechanics of how to fly, but may not be typed in that particular aircraft. A bit of guidance from the ground would save the day.
What if Mr. Bat-shit Crazy did something to incapacitate the copilot before going on his lunatic tour of the cabin? They’d be from 2 to 0 pilots, and if he locked the door on the way out, you’d be along for the ride, as long as the autopilot kept working and there was fuel.
IMHO, the locked cockpit door rule wasn’t thought out as well as it should have been.
“We understand and appreciate everyone’s desire to hear directly from the crew regarding their experience, but the crew has decided to decline all media opportunities in order to spend time with their families,” JetBlue Airways
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/31/jetblue-crew-will-stay-quiet-about-las-vegas-incident/#ixzz1qjYr3lqd