Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Cockpit Door- Air India- Comedy of Errors

Neelam Mathews
May 14, 2013


If its not snoozing pilots, its locked out ones! Times Now is reporting how a pilot got locked out of the cockpit returning from a call of nature.
The door jammed we are hearing. An Air India official rather calmly told the channel there was (fortunately) a commander on the right seat. "Engine ki to baat nahin thi- cockpit door ki baat thi," he said. Really, are we all now relegated to the status of morons?
We have a few questions- while its too early to say-
Isn't this an engineering issue?
Failure of CRM?
What if this happened with the earlier issue when the stewardesses were in the cockpit while both the pilots snoozed?
Safety an issue at all? What if the co-pilot wasn't a commander? Was there no cabin crew inside? Even if there were, how would they have landed the plane? However, the SOP requires them to be there.
What if the co-pilot got a heart attack?
Whatever the cause, Air India would do well financially selling story lines to film producers!


2 comments:

  1. This is written is such poor taste.
    DO NOT demean such a coveted profession miss Mathews.

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  2. Nobody is demeaning a profession. One has full regard for it. We feel it is essential to bring scenarios to the fore. Would you rather we ignored it and waited for the next disaster to follow? Just FYI, the story would have been treated different should there have been a crisis- which we thank God, did not happen.

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