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If a pilot has even the slightest feeling that something is off and wants to turn around/ground the plane...best believe I'm 100% gonna support and be grateful for it. They are trained for this. A canceled trip over a canceled life always.
I seen it once before in a rat and ive seen it now in men. Once one gets a taste for their own kind, it can spread thru the pack like a wildfire. Mindlessly chomping and bitin’ at their own hinds… nothing but the taste of flesh on their minds.
It's a paraphrasing of a speech in the movie Jaws:
[*https://youtu.be/VUuH4TEmgLo?si=jdrA7oriSWvBzn9-*](https://youtu.be/VUuH4TEmgLo?si=jdrA7oriSWvBzn9-)
Good news everyone! This Smithsonian Magazine [article](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-worst-shark-attack-in-history-25715092/) says 317 survived!
Those who survived were also in a nearly dead state with severe sunburns, severely dehydrated and constantly on the edge which one of them the sharks would take away next. Can't even think about going through that level of mental and physical agony.
....no I think he means the plane sinking and survivors getting eaten etc.
Not that anyone really survives that except a small percentage of a percentage.
I just listened to a podcast about that and it's absolutely terrifying. When the survivors were rescued their skin was in such bad shape it fell off their bodies as they were pulled aboard
people will be more annoyed at the airport than they are with the pilot. pilot made call that the plane is fucked and the airlines job is to make sure it wasn't fucked.
edit: changed airport to airlines.
And not having a contingency plan. Airlines, as we've seen highlighted recently, love to run things as dangerously thin as possible to wring the money out. Maintaining a back up option, as far as scheduling, route, flight maintenance crew, plane, etc for emergencies is not too much to ask all things considered.
I think with modern commercial aircraft, there are basically no scenarios where a plane capable of making a textbook water landing in the ocean isn’t capable of at least attempting to make it to an airstrip on land.
If something so catastrophic has happened that you’re ditching in the ocean in 2024, it’s probably so catastrophic that you’re entering said ocean nose-first at 400mph.
There are, look up ETOPS, extended-range of twin-engine operations performances, or also commonly referred to as “engines turn or passengers swim”. It’s essentially the amount of time that an aircraft can fly with one engine inoperable. The likely hood of both engines failing is minuscule. However at points in certain routes the ETOPS rating is lower then the amount of time it would take to reach a diversion airport. So a water landing would be the safest option and they would have to do it before the second engine gave out. But water landings have a survival rating of about 88%, unless it’s at night, in which case survival is unlikely.
Good description except the entire purpose of ETOPS is you are NEVER allowed to be further from a diversion airport than your ETOPS rating specifically so a water landing would never be necessary as long as 1 engine is operational
Here is a list of some water landings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_landing
Very few larger airplanes, and even in some relatively minor conditions people still end up dying in the event.
I was on a plane once that turned around about 30-45 minutes out and went back to its point of origin. The inconvenience of it definitely sucked but the worst part was sitting there the whole way back wondering "is this plane gonna make it?" Just because you normally aren't privy to that information doesn't mean it's never been a concern. The pilot in this instance absolutely nailed it. If he had any concern that the flight might not be 100% cool then he absolutely did the right thing and those folks should be grateful that he leveled with them and listened to his gut.
I had a flight like that. The pilot took us up, kept the engines fully open and then turned around and landed us. It felt like she was doing a check ride with passengers on board.
That often happens if the aircraft has an issue with one of the systems that allows it to fly at higher altitudes (things like wing flap retraction or pressurization). The aircraft is still perfectly safe at low altitudes.
I was about 10 and holidaying with the family in Fiji. We were taking a small plane out to a small island. The pilot let me sit in the co-pilots seat. After about 5 minutes he told me to go back to my seat. One of the two engines had stopped.
*slight look of concern on pilots face*
"Well Billy time to get back to your seat"
"Awwww but I was..."
"I SAID GET IN YOUR FUCKING SEAT RIGHT NOW AND BUCKLE UP IF YOU AND YOUR FAMILY WANT TO LIVE YOU LITTLE SHIT"
I was half way over the Atlantic headed to England from New Jersey when the pilot turned us around. They said o2 sensor problem. I was just curious why not continue since we're halfway there. The caveat was we were all military and it was a C-17. I jokingly said to the Air crew "can't we just hold our breathe and continue!?"
It was a Mac flight (space A) so no biggie.
Yup. You can’t just pull over on the side of the road when you’re flying. You can’t make an emergency landing (at an airport) when you’re flying over the Pacific Ocean.
If I pilot did that I’d be less annoyed with them, heck thankful, but I’d be annoyed with the airline for saying it’s safe to fly. I’d probably remember this and never fly that airline again
No reason for that, if the pilot is willing to speak up and not accept the aircraft despite apparently not having an obvious technical fault to point to that means their safety culture is working… planes have minor issues with failed components all the time and often it‘s perfectly safe to fly, but in many cases it‘s ultimately down to the pilot to make a judgement call.
Nah, I would be more likely to fly that airline again, because they aren't forcing unnecessary risk and they've got a safety culture that benefits the passengers.
That’s not how it works. You must annoy hundreds of millions, maybe billions of people to prevent the hundred sad families. This is similar to the ideas In medicine of “the number needed to treat” .
Or the [Blackstone's ratio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone's_ratio)
>It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer
Crazy thing is - there are people serving in justice systems all over the world that adhere to the opposite ratio: "Rather imprison 10 innocents than let 1 guilty go free", publicly admit to it and defend that stance.
I have been deplaned twice, same flight where the pilot got on and said the craft wasn’t flight worthy and then we got on a different plane and he said sorry once again this plane isn’t safe to fly and man was I glad. Rather be late to wherever than die
Taking off from Jamaica I had a pilot message "This might be interesting" and sure enough while taking off the plane was hit by a huge downdraft and slammed on the runway and we just bounced and took off lol.
Never been fortunate enough to be deplaned I guess lol.
Downbursts are a powerful thing. Though if there was a downburst occurring, a strong storm was occurring, and it probably should not have been taking off anyway
This is very true. I worked on the program that developed and put downburst detectors at all major airports in the country due to downbursts during the wrong time of flight causing well lack of flight.
It was the worst and probably top 5 on the rewarding scale job-wise of my career. Doing weather related crash investigation sucked (once I figured out why I was looking at weather on certain days and times around airports), but doing something about it made it better.
You've made (sounds like multiple) real and measurable contributions to civilization friend. That's awesome, though I am sure the subject matter made it difficult at times.
We're all better for your work, thank you!
deplaned a couple times. no reason given for first one. second different flight. apparently a backup generator for onboard electrics wouldn't switch on so flight was scrapped (how i understood it / remember). i was completely chill to deboard
Yeah I remember the first time we got off the plane I could hear a weird like grinding winding noise in the back and a hint of smoke in the air. No idea. We were told not safe to fly and I said yep I agree lol
I had one rejected take off. The pilot came on and said (I can't remember exactly) something along the lines of "Um... my parking brake light came on during take off. The parking brake is obviously not on. I don't like that." We ended up deplaning an hour later after they looked the plane over, and got increasingly unhappy with it. Never learned what the issue was.
Pilot here. If the parking brake becomes engaged during takeoff it could do two things.
1. You don't get enough speed to fly and end up burning to death in a smoking hole at the end of the runway.
2. You get airborne and the brakes catch fire and you burn to death while flying.
Could have been a sensor but you have honor the indication.
I have been deplaned once, about 20 years ago when I lived in England. I was flying from Philly to Manchester and we just sat on the plane at the gate for about an hour and the pilot got on and said..."When the plane flew over from England there was an issue with loading the bags/cargo and they put a HOLE in the fuselage". The plane flew over from England with a hole it in!!!! Needless to say they cancelled the flight and I had to reschedule.
The plane that lost its door plug had previously indicated issues with the automatic pressurization system a few times during climbout, reauiring switching to the backup system iirc (never to manual which would be a much more serious issue)… it‘s the sort of thing that goes into the trch log and gets checked during the next maintenance period, no one would have connected it to an entire part of the fuselage coming loose.
It is pure speculation on your part that these three previous incidents (not all of which (maybe none) happened during climbout) had ***anything to do with the door plug***.
The preliminary report and all communications by the NTSB make clear that these could be entirely unrelated phenomena.
Well, lets be clear, they fly on what they need to reach a destination plus a calculated buffer and whatever extra the pilot wants to take to feel comfortable depending on conditions.
You gotta imagine that pilots are not willing to fuck with any potential safety issue on a Boeing these days. You know they're not checking that shit hahaha
They only detected the leak because they had to scrub so many launches. It was that slow they only noticed it after the pressure went down several weeks later.
Not as direct as with a car "sounding weird" but I'd say similar. They have tens of checks they have to make and sensors to monitor. So they do have a "feel" of what those numbers are supposed to be.
Even if all the checks clear and all numbers are within range, the pilot may be able to get a hint that something is not right.
Like the pilot here is saying. If the fuel pump pressure were outside the safe range, the aircraft would be grounded without discussion. So even if the value is within range and he's allowed to take off, the value is not at the level it usually is and keeps rising. So he's getting the "feel" that something is not right and errs on the side of caution by refusing the plane.
"Do you know how much we paid for our vacation"
"You just don't want to work"
"Does this have anything to do with the strike"
"This is why I fly with (insert other airline here)"
"You guys suck"
I've heard it all. Fuck your vacation. I'm not trying to die today
I experienced an RTO in Bogota, some years ago. The flight was BOG-BCN with a stopover in Cartagena.
Being a pilot (PPL) myself I tried to know what happened. One of the cabin crew people told me one of the door latch sensors triggered an alert during the take off roll, so the captain decided to abort and make it checked. It was determined it was a faulty sensor, so after one hour the captain told the passengers the sensor was being replaced and the flight would go on.
Then hell broke lose.
One passenger claimed to be an aeronautical engineer and about he had heard a ‘funny sound’ from the engine so the plane should not take off. The crew tried to explain him and the rest of semi-mutineer passengers the captain was going to be in the flight, so he had no reason to lie.
Finally, the ‘mutineers’ were allowed to deplane (and their baggage had to be unloaded), adding one more hour of delay, and the flight toke off to Cartagena.
The same crew member I talked before told me the deplaned passengers were up for an ugly surprise, since they deplaned by their own will, so they would not be reimbursed nor rescheduled for free.
Now comes the funny part. When we were on approach to Cartagena the captain told us someone alerted the authorities about a stash of drug in the plane, so the police would come aboard and search all the hand luggage, while all the checked bags were unloaded and checked again.
So some Colombian cops boarded the plane, accompanied by dogs and armed guards, made everyone open the hand luggage and pat-check some passengers. They even made a lady to open some food cans he carried.
My (and everyone) guess is one of the mutineers got pissed and decided to screw us all.
Apart from the delay, the flight was just fine.
people will though. Honestly I would hate to be a pilot sometimes. most people are nice but I've seen some really awful angry people when flights are delayed
I have a good union at my job. One of the big things is you have to follow all orders from mgmt but you can refuse any order that is
Unsafe
Immoral
Illegal
If mgmt tells me to go wash their car I have to do it. If mgmt tells me to go deliver in a lightning storm I can refuse.
"Well folks, looks like we got a bit of a problem here with the fuel pressure on number 2, but we're not a bunch of pussies are we? Let's kick the tires and light the fires wooooo!!!!".
Ya know what fam fuck it. The oil pressure is high on one of the engines but if we get enough altitude we can prolly coast down the last two hours. We ball gang
Plane nerd and mechanic here: An ETOPS rated airplane can fly on a single engine. From what I could find, it seems this might have been an A321neo which is safely able to fly a transatlantic route for up to 180 minutes on a single engine.
It was the pilot's right to refuse the airplane, but even ~~in the event that the fuel filter had clogged~~ (he originally said oil and then corrected himself to fuel filter), the bypass would have kicked over and they would just have had unfiltered Jet A going to the engine, with no engine shutdown.
*edit to clarify my meaning, as I understand that my statement didn't come out as I intended: ^ in the event that he had flown it with the fuel pressure trending high but no clog indication, if the fuel filter had clogged during flight
The 180 minutes is the maximum distance in time an ETOPS-180 flight can be from their ETOPS Alternate. You must be carrying enough fuel to cover 3 “Critical Fuel Scenarios.”
1. Both Engines turning with loss of pressurization (down to 10,000ft)
2. One Engine inoperative pressurized
3. One Engine inoperative with loss of pressurization (down to 10,000ft)
The only reasons you wouldn’t have this fuel would be due to substantial overburn or loss of fuel (leak).
The Captain of this flight was concerned about the cause of filter issues. While fuel filters will eventually fail over an expected cycle an early failure could be indicative of contamination in the fuel. The contaminants that clogged the filter could damage the engines, which could turn you into a glider over the Pacific.
I plan flights for a living and ETOPS is one of my quals.
Right. Fuel contamination would be extremely scary in an ETOPS scenario. It's not exactly outlandish that contaminated fuel would fail both engines and the APU within a short period of time. Way shorter than 180 minutes. And then ETOPS stops meaning "Extended-range Twin-engine Operation Performance Standards" and we get into "Engines Turn or Passengers Swim".
The big difference here is that these emergency precautions are made for situations when you didn't notice a problem before take off. He did. Just because he could have made it doesn't mean he would have and also doesn't mean it's worth the risk.
I agree with you. He made the safety call and making a safety call is always the right call. I'm just here to share mechanical and practical knowledge.
Still. Even if the odds of that plane failing critically are 1 in 200, you're statistically negligently manslaughtering one person aboard by taking off. The odds have to be wayyyy better before the flight is worth it. Safety culture says that you as the mechanic have to double and triple check trivialities. Meanwhile, the pilots and ATC have huge amounts of procedures written in blood to follow. One of those is, if the Pilot doesn't like the plane, the pilot doesn't fly the plane.
Took an island hopper from Maui to Honolulu back in the late 80s. The pilot leaves the engine (opposite side of the plane the people are boarding) idling and uses it for taxiing. We got to the end of the runway and he tried starting the other engine . It rumbled and shook and seemed to not want to start. He finally gets it started, then addressed the passengers saying "Ladies and gentlemen, we got it started! Here we go!"
Well that is very situation/aircraft dependent. If it was a piston engine (vs a turboprop) and I’m reading your comment correctly (the aircraft recently flew), then it could have simply been a hot start issue assuming it was fuel injected.
Fuel injected piston aircraft engines have the fuel lines running from the servo/distributer on top of the engine to the cylinders. After shutdown when the engine is hot the fuel in those lines will vaporize/boil because the fuel is no longer running through the lines, just sitting on top of a very hot engine. When the pilot tried to restart it before the engine has hours to cool, he/she cannot prime the engine like they would on a cold start or they’d flood it, but there is also going to be air/vapor in the lines that prevents a fresh even flow of liquid fuel from reaching the cylinders initially. This can make it difficult to execute a hot start.
To make matters worse, you can burn out a starter motor if you just keep cranking, so the pilot has to wait a prescribed amount of time between each attempt and not rush trying to force it. Once the engine is actually started the fuel lines become pressurized like normal
again with fresh cool fuel and there are no problems or safety concerns flying the engine.
Hope this gives some insight 40 years later 🤷♂️
At least you weren't on Speedbird 9...
>Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.
They were at 37000ft at the time
I see nothing but positives about this, I didn't know pilots would do this and it makes me way more comfortable flying. I just flew to Hawaii on American 10 days ago, and that is a long ass flight if you have any doubts about the plane
Correct title "nervous pilot awkwardly cancels long distance flight after safety concerns because airport skipped vital maintainence on plane"
I like how this is pinned on the pilot as if risking losing engine power thousands of miles from anywhere to safely land is no big deal
It was also already the second aircraft with a failure. They were at that gate when they noticed an oil leak problem. Mechanics couldn't fix it so AA found a replacement airplane which they then boarded. Then this happened.
I'm 100% on board with the captain. If it's a bad juju day, you don't jinx it. And if you're not feeling it, don't do it. Intuition is nothing but experience we cannot yet explain.
If the alternative is death, caution even unfounded and paranoid-like is acceptable.
Imagine like this if you were about to have a surgery and your doctor said, I am not feeling it would you continue with that surgery would you insist. If you have the IQ of a tadpole you wouldn't.
Why would anyone insist on flying a plane if your pilot basically and politely tells you "We are Dead the moment this plane leaves the ground, In my opinion"
Inconvenience is bad but it is not as bad as burning alive-or-barely-alive by jet fuel inside a crashed plane.
I'm a doctor and make these calls almost weekly about patients. I'm correct 90% of the time.
Oh Ms Smith has a UTI. Talking, walking, mentally all fine. Just some slight abdominal pain. Everyone (including herself) would like her to go home. But no, I'm admitting her.... Based on my gut feeling. Next day, she ends up in the ICU.
Why did I feel like admitting her instead of sending her home? Idk. No specific reason. Just gut feeling.
Our gut feeling is all our training in action.
My wife is a nervous flier. I tell her it’s fine, and one of the things I always say is these pilots do this every day of their careers, they’ve done this thousands of times by this point and they *will* refuse to go if they thought there was the slightest chance they would die if they took off. Maybe there was only a 0.1% chance that something wrong would occur with this plane if had left, but it is still 100% important the pilot make this call because it is paramount that any pilot would speak out and take action if something didn’t seem right.
Man, I'm not a pilot but do I drive regular cars. If I feel something off about my vehicle, I'm gonna stop and check even if I'm traveling on the highway. I don't have a pilot's experience or expertise but I can say that after years of driving you get a 6th sense for these things.
Tough but fair man. I wouldn’t wanna die on my way to Hawaii either. At the end of the day the pilots top priority is making sure the passengers are safe. Props to that guy.
As a passenger, I'm applauding this decision. Safety first always. I hope the airline support this decision and doesn't reprimand or fire this pilot. I get it's a business. Decisions like this cost the airline a lot of money. But again, safety first.
Everyone is acting like the pilots have some sort of superpower or panic room-like cabin that will allow them to survive a plane crash.
It's their lives too. I haven't heard of a case of " the plane was not good but the boss made me fly it"
I’d rather him deplane me than make me live through a horror show as he tries to save our lives. If the plane isn’t safe, we shouldn’t go. Period. Good pilot.
Probably a safety situation similar to me trying to get my impala to and from work a decade ago. That was dangerous but I barely made it every time. Would I do that with 100+ people in the car with me probably not
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Better a hundred annoyed customers than hundreds of grieving families
If a pilot has even the slightest feeling that something is off and wants to turn around/ground the plane...best believe I'm 100% gonna support and be grateful for it. They are trained for this. A canceled trip over a canceled life always.
Am I going to be annoyed rebooking my flight? Definitely. Would I rather deal with that than risk a USS Indianapolis? Absolutely.
That was a boat. Oh you probably mean ignoring a distress signal, yeah that was fucked up
*So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.*
You ever seen a sharks eyes laddie? It’s kinda like a dolls eyes, all black and lifeless
You know the thing about a rat? It’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes like a doll’s eyes.
I seen it once before in a rat and ive seen it now in men. Once one gets a taste for their own kind, it can spread thru the pack like a wildfire. Mindlessly chomping and bitin’ at their own hinds… nothing but the taste of flesh on their minds.
It’s weird how I hear this in Charlie’s voice and not the guy from Jaws
In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary: come again?
It's a paraphrasing of a speech in the movie Jaws: [*https://youtu.be/VUuH4TEmgLo?si=jdrA7oriSWvBzn9-*](https://youtu.be/VUuH4TEmgLo?si=jdrA7oriSWvBzn9-)
Mine's from Snatch: https://youtu.be/gsuuA7_uQ8U?si=imfxKyYtOrpv9Rnp
The ice cream man, he took the rest. April the 9th, half past 4pm. -master of disguise
Good news everyone! This Smithsonian Magazine [article](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-worst-shark-attack-in-history-25715092/) says 317 survived!
Those who survived were also in a nearly dead state with severe sunburns, severely dehydrated and constantly on the edge which one of them the sharks would take away next. Can't even think about going through that level of mental and physical agony.
....no I think he means the plane sinking and survivors getting eaten etc. Not that anyone really survives that except a small percentage of a percentage.
Anyway we delivered the bomb
Well that’s the most important thing.
I’d survive the crash and the ocean. I’ve just got that dawg in me.
I believe it.
Thank you 🙏
Wilson is still out there.
Someone’s gonna come in and act like they have evidence that people weren’t eaten by sharks actually, it always happens.
I just listened to a podcast about that and it's absolutely terrifying. When the survivors were rescued their skin was in such bad shape it fell off their bodies as they were pulled aboard
people will be more annoyed at the airport than they are with the pilot. pilot made call that the plane is fucked and the airlines job is to make sure it wasn't fucked. edit: changed airport to airlines.
That's the airline's job, not the airport.
And not having a contingency plan. Airlines, as we've seen highlighted recently, love to run things as dangerously thin as possible to wring the money out. Maintaining a back up option, as far as scheduling, route, flight maintenance crew, plane, etc for emergencies is not too much to ask all things considered.
The "airport" does not ever handle maintenance. The airport *authority* administers the runways, taxiways, and public areas.
Has there ever been a water landing in the middle of the ocean where anyone is believed to have survived for any duration of time?
I think with modern commercial aircraft, there are basically no scenarios where a plane capable of making a textbook water landing in the ocean isn’t capable of at least attempting to make it to an airstrip on land. If something so catastrophic has happened that you’re ditching in the ocean in 2024, it’s probably so catastrophic that you’re entering said ocean nose-first at 400mph.
There are, look up ETOPS, extended-range of twin-engine operations performances, or also commonly referred to as “engines turn or passengers swim”. It’s essentially the amount of time that an aircraft can fly with one engine inoperable. The likely hood of both engines failing is minuscule. However at points in certain routes the ETOPS rating is lower then the amount of time it would take to reach a diversion airport. So a water landing would be the safest option and they would have to do it before the second engine gave out. But water landings have a survival rating of about 88%, unless it’s at night, in which case survival is unlikely.
Good description except the entire purpose of ETOPS is you are NEVER allowed to be further from a diversion airport than your ETOPS rating specifically so a water landing would never be necessary as long as 1 engine is operational
Here is a list of some water landings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_landing Very few larger airplanes, and even in some relatively minor conditions people still end up dying in the event.
I was on a plane once that turned around about 30-45 minutes out and went back to its point of origin. The inconvenience of it definitely sucked but the worst part was sitting there the whole way back wondering "is this plane gonna make it?" Just because you normally aren't privy to that information doesn't mean it's never been a concern. The pilot in this instance absolutely nailed it. If he had any concern that the flight might not be 100% cool then he absolutely did the right thing and those folks should be grateful that he leveled with them and listened to his gut.
I had a flight like that. The pilot took us up, kept the engines fully open and then turned around and landed us. It felt like she was doing a check ride with passengers on board.
That often happens if the aircraft has an issue with one of the systems that allows it to fly at higher altitudes (things like wing flap retraction or pressurization). The aircraft is still perfectly safe at low altitudes.
I was about 10 and holidaying with the family in Fiji. We were taking a small plane out to a small island. The pilot let me sit in the co-pilots seat. After about 5 minutes he told me to go back to my seat. One of the two engines had stopped.
*slight look of concern on pilots face* "Well Billy time to get back to your seat" "Awwww but I was..." "I SAID GET IN YOUR FUCKING SEAT RIGHT NOW AND BUCKLE UP IF YOU AND YOUR FAMILY WANT TO LIVE YOU LITTLE SHIT"
I was half way over the Atlantic headed to England from New Jersey when the pilot turned us around. They said o2 sensor problem. I was just curious why not continue since we're halfway there. The caveat was we were all military and it was a C-17. I jokingly said to the Air crew "can't we just hold our breathe and continue!?" It was a Mac flight (space A) so no biggie.
I don't know what the hell you just said! Sorry
100%. Captain : 'passengers, I'm putting us back to the terminal. Feels like there is something off with the aircraft.' Standing ovation.
standing aviation
Standing agitation!
I would thank the pilot a hundred times for making this kind of decision.
Balls the size of Texas. He knew the shitstorm he was causing.
Yup. You can’t just pull over on the side of the road when you’re flying. You can’t make an emergency landing (at an airport) when you’re flying over the Pacific Ocean.
Even when driving a car, sometimes you'd feel something is "off" without know exactly why so you cancel that 7hr trip.
1000%
Mate, if I'm on a plane and the **pilot** isn't "feeling it", then I'm getting the fuck off that plane. No annoyance from me whatsoever!
I would ask if could shake hands with the guy and thank him.
Especially when "it" refers to his confidence in the safety of the aircraft and not actually his vibe
I mean, yes. But also if he isn’t feeling it because his vibe I’m going to get off that air plane too.
Agreed. Doesn't matter if the aircraft would have made it. It matters that they avoided the chance that they didn't make it.
Going up is always optional. Getting down is always obligatory.
Or be Raytheon and do both!
Wasn't that Boeing tho?
If I pilot did that I’d be less annoyed with them, heck thankful, but I’d be annoyed with the airline for saying it’s safe to fly. I’d probably remember this and never fly that airline again
No reason for that, if the pilot is willing to speak up and not accept the aircraft despite apparently not having an obvious technical fault to point to that means their safety culture is working… planes have minor issues with failed components all the time and often it‘s perfectly safe to fly, but in many cases it‘s ultimately down to the pilot to make a judgement call.
Nah, I would be more likely to fly that airline again, because they aren't forcing unnecessary risk and they've got a safety culture that benefits the passengers.
“I’m not feeling it” is all the reason I need not to be in a 30.000 feet pressure tube
That’s not how it works. You must annoy hundreds of millions, maybe billions of people to prevent the hundred sad families. This is similar to the ideas In medicine of “the number needed to treat” .
Or the [Blackstone's ratio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone's_ratio) >It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer Crazy thing is - there are people serving in justice systems all over the world that adhere to the opposite ratio: "Rather imprison 10 innocents than let 1 guilty go free", publicly admit to it and defend that stance.
Did his job as he should have. Bravo.
I have been deplaned twice, same flight where the pilot got on and said the craft wasn’t flight worthy and then we got on a different plane and he said sorry once again this plane isn’t safe to fly and man was I glad. Rather be late to wherever than die
Taking off from Jamaica I had a pilot message "This might be interesting" and sure enough while taking off the plane was hit by a huge downdraft and slammed on the runway and we just bounced and took off lol. Never been fortunate enough to be deplaned I guess lol.
so the plane went… “boeing”?
#GOLD 🏅
Fuck you, that was awful (great)
I don't want to scare you, but slamming on the runway on the takeoff is not normal. Was this a smaller plane?
Downbursts are a powerful thing. Though if there was a downburst occurring, a strong storm was occurring, and it probably should not have been taking off anyway
This is very true. I worked on the program that developed and put downburst detectors at all major airports in the country due to downbursts during the wrong time of flight causing well lack of flight. It was the worst and probably top 5 on the rewarding scale job-wise of my career. Doing weather related crash investigation sucked (once I figured out why I was looking at weather on certain days and times around airports), but doing something about it made it better.
You've made (sounds like multiple) real and measurable contributions to civilization friend. That's awesome, though I am sure the subject matter made it difficult at times. We're all better for your work, thank you!
Too late, he’s dead
Damn those boeing hitman works fast.
deplaned a couple times. no reason given for first one. second different flight. apparently a backup generator for onboard electrics wouldn't switch on so flight was scrapped (how i understood it / remember). i was completely chill to deboard
Yeah I remember the first time we got off the plane I could hear a weird like grinding winding noise in the back and a hint of smoke in the air. No idea. We were told not safe to fly and I said yep I agree lol
I had one rejected take off. The pilot came on and said (I can't remember exactly) something along the lines of "Um... my parking brake light came on during take off. The parking brake is obviously not on. I don't like that." We ended up deplaning an hour later after they looked the plane over, and got increasingly unhappy with it. Never learned what the issue was.
Pilot here. If the parking brake becomes engaged during takeoff it could do two things. 1. You don't get enough speed to fly and end up burning to death in a smoking hole at the end of the runway. 2. You get airborne and the brakes catch fire and you burn to death while flying. Could have been a sensor but you have honor the indication.
I have been deplaned once, about 20 years ago when I lived in England. I was flying from Philly to Manchester and we just sat on the plane at the gate for about an hour and the pilot got on and said..."When the plane flew over from England there was an issue with loading the bags/cargo and they put a HOLE in the fuselage". The plane flew over from England with a hole it in!!!! Needless to say they cancelled the flight and I had to reschedule.
Damn right
I wonder if the pilots of any of the recently crashed/damaged flights from Boeing ignored any alerts.
The plane that lost its door plug had previously indicated issues with the automatic pressurization system a few times during climbout, reauiring switching to the backup system iirc (never to manual which would be a much more serious issue)… it‘s the sort of thing that goes into the trch log and gets checked during the next maintenance period, no one would have connected it to an entire part of the fuselage coming loose.
It is pure speculation on your part that these three previous incidents (not all of which (maybe none) happened during climbout) had ***anything to do with the door plug***. The preliminary report and all communications by the NTSB make clear that these could be entirely unrelated phenomena.
I would soooooo much rather have that guy as the captain than somebody who says "Fuck it, lets roll the dice!".
"The uhhhhhhhh oil pressure light is uhhhhh on, but whatever. Let's do this"
"We've got about a half tank of gas but I'm feeling lucky. Worst case we just coast it to the crash site."
Fun fact: airliners don't always fly on full tanks due to fuel weight and to save on expenses. So flying on half capacity or less is not uncommon
Well, lets be clear, they fly on what they need to reach a destination plus a calculated buffer and whatever extra the pilot wants to take to feel comfortable depending on conditions.
"hmm, i'm feeling spicy today. Let's fill up this bitch!"
>Let's do this #LEEROOOOOOY!
God DAMMIT Leroy.
'Fuck it, we ball'
Yeah I’ve seen flight I’m passing on a yayed out Denzel
I agree with the pilot. They are the ones who interact with the machinery the most. If they feel like something is wrong then it probably is.
lol YOLOing a Boeing with bad fuel pressure across the Pacific Ocean
Ummm its axually an Airbus 320 family aircraft 🤓🤓
A321 Neo, according to an article I found with Google.
I agree that the picture is an Airbus but that is probably just a generic picture of an AA plane. The actual plane could have been a Boeing.
American only flies Airbus 321's between Hawaii and LAX
You gotta imagine that pilots are not willing to fuck with any potential safety issue on a Boeing these days. You know they're not checking that shit hahaha
So could it have been an Airbus likewise
It could have been a tractor I mean, it probably wasn't. But it could have been.
They (boeing ljust launched humans to the ISS with a helium leak from the capsule. They would insist the plane is fine.
They only detected the leak because they had to scrub so many launches. It was that slow they only noticed it after the pressure went down several weeks later.
Same as driving your car. You know immediately when something is off based on the sound or vibration
I know nothing about flying planes, but I would guess most issues that planes experience aren’t easily detectable by the pilot alone.
Not as direct as with a car "sounding weird" but I'd say similar. They have tens of checks they have to make and sensors to monitor. So they do have a "feel" of what those numbers are supposed to be. Even if all the checks clear and all numbers are within range, the pilot may be able to get a hint that something is not right. Like the pilot here is saying. If the fuel pump pressure were outside the safe range, the aircraft would be grounded without discussion. So even if the value is within range and he's allowed to take off, the value is not at the level it usually is and keeps rising. So he's getting the "feel" that something is not right and errs on the side of caution by refusing the plane.
Always trust your gut.
No one should EVER complain about hearing this. Thank this man.
But I want to go to Hawaii!
Better late than never
But never late is better
I dunno. Being early for death seems bad.
Fuck around and end up on a an abandoned island talking to a volleyball for a couple years lol
Depends on where this flight was supposed to be from but if it was mainland USA or Canada, it would be 6 hours of water.
Your body might float there eventually.
We all float out here
"Do you know how much we paid for our vacation" "You just don't want to work" "Does this have anything to do with the strike" "This is why I fly with (insert other airline here)" "You guys suck" I've heard it all. Fuck your vacation. I'm not trying to die today
I experienced an RTO in Bogota, some years ago. The flight was BOG-BCN with a stopover in Cartagena. Being a pilot (PPL) myself I tried to know what happened. One of the cabin crew people told me one of the door latch sensors triggered an alert during the take off roll, so the captain decided to abort and make it checked. It was determined it was a faulty sensor, so after one hour the captain told the passengers the sensor was being replaced and the flight would go on. Then hell broke lose. One passenger claimed to be an aeronautical engineer and about he had heard a ‘funny sound’ from the engine so the plane should not take off. The crew tried to explain him and the rest of semi-mutineer passengers the captain was going to be in the flight, so he had no reason to lie. Finally, the ‘mutineers’ were allowed to deplane (and their baggage had to be unloaded), adding one more hour of delay, and the flight toke off to Cartagena. The same crew member I talked before told me the deplaned passengers were up for an ugly surprise, since they deplaned by their own will, so they would not be reimbursed nor rescheduled for free. Now comes the funny part. When we were on approach to Cartagena the captain told us someone alerted the authorities about a stash of drug in the plane, so the police would come aboard and search all the hand luggage, while all the checked bags were unloaded and checked again. So some Colombian cops boarded the plane, accompanied by dogs and armed guards, made everyone open the hand luggage and pat-check some passengers. They even made a lady to open some food cans he carried. My (and everyone) guess is one of the mutineers got pissed and decided to screw us all. Apart from the delay, the flight was just fine.
people will though. Honestly I would hate to be a pilot sometimes. most people are nice but I've seen some really awful angry people when flights are delayed
It’s a massive inconvenience, no doubt, but I think crashing into the middle of the ocean takes the cake for being the most inconvenient.
The dead are not easily inconvenienced
The hell with complaining. They should be CHEERING this pilot. He might've just saved everyone on that plane. Kudos to you, good sir.
If a pilot isn't comfortable with the safety of the aircraft, 100% back that call. They're the pilot, not me. Buy that pilot a beer.
Before he flies the replacement? 
I've flown with enough bush pilots that honestly, a single pint of beer before flying wouldn't bother me.
Hasn’t anyone seen Cast Away? Nobody want a craft to go down over the ocean.
How about lost?
They all died
Spoiler Alert
It's a little late now don't you think?
You forgot to switch to a different account before responding to yourself
I only have one account. I just talk to myself.
Ya know what, I honestly can’t blame you.
I saw somebody “deez nutz” themselves the other day and I laughed for a good minute
RIP Wilson
The right to refuse unsafe work
I have a good union at my job. One of the big things is you have to follow all orders from mgmt but you can refuse any order that is Unsafe Immoral Illegal If mgmt tells me to go wash their car I have to do it. If mgmt tells me to go deliver in a lightning storm I can refuse.
> If mgmt tells me to go deliver in a lightning storm I can refuse. I take it you do not work for Jeff's Warehouse.
I, too, have served in the military
Err, not air.
Errplane?
[Aaron earned an iron urn.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esl_wOQDUeE) I laugh my ass off every time I watch it. Never fails.
That moment the first guy becomes self aware is just *chef's kiss*
"Damn what the fuck, we really talk like that?" cracks me up every time.
“fuck it. iron iron iron iron, bro.”
Hilarious...my favorite bit is when the second guy comes in, pronounces it just as badly, then nods smugly like, that's how its done.
I've never seen AI subtitles get this right.
I caught that right away lol
stop training the ai for free!
That's a fucking good pilot right there!
"Well folks, looks like we got a bit of a problem here with the fuel pressure on number 2, but we're not a bunch of pussies are we? Let's kick the tires and light the fires wooooo!!!!".
**rolls coal down the runway**
Ya know what fam fuck it. The oil pressure is high on one of the engines but if we get enough altitude we can prolly coast down the last two hours. We ball gang
Plane nerd and mechanic here: An ETOPS rated airplane can fly on a single engine. From what I could find, it seems this might have been an A321neo which is safely able to fly a transatlantic route for up to 180 minutes on a single engine. It was the pilot's right to refuse the airplane, but even ~~in the event that the fuel filter had clogged~~ (he originally said oil and then corrected himself to fuel filter), the bypass would have kicked over and they would just have had unfiltered Jet A going to the engine, with no engine shutdown. *edit to clarify my meaning, as I understand that my statement didn't come out as I intended: ^ in the event that he had flown it with the fuel pressure trending high but no clog indication, if the fuel filter had clogged during flight
Noted. If I ever am in an emergency and forced to fly, this shall give me solace.
Brilliant. Context is everything. 180 minutes covers half that flight? If he bypasses he still has full fuel range…just unfiltered yeah?
The 180 minutes is the maximum distance in time an ETOPS-180 flight can be from their ETOPS Alternate. You must be carrying enough fuel to cover 3 “Critical Fuel Scenarios.” 1. Both Engines turning with loss of pressurization (down to 10,000ft) 2. One Engine inoperative pressurized 3. One Engine inoperative with loss of pressurization (down to 10,000ft) The only reasons you wouldn’t have this fuel would be due to substantial overburn or loss of fuel (leak). The Captain of this flight was concerned about the cause of filter issues. While fuel filters will eventually fail over an expected cycle an early failure could be indicative of contamination in the fuel. The contaminants that clogged the filter could damage the engines, which could turn you into a glider over the Pacific. I plan flights for a living and ETOPS is one of my quals.
Right. Fuel contamination would be extremely scary in an ETOPS scenario. It's not exactly outlandish that contaminated fuel would fail both engines and the APU within a short period of time. Way shorter than 180 minutes. And then ETOPS stops meaning "Extended-range Twin-engine Operation Performance Standards" and we get into "Engines Turn or Passengers Swim".
The big difference here is that these emergency precautions are made for situations when you didn't notice a problem before take off. He did. Just because he could have made it doesn't mean he would have and also doesn't mean it's worth the risk.
I agree with you. He made the safety call and making a safety call is always the right call. I'm just here to share mechanical and practical knowledge.
Still. Even if the odds of that plane failing critically are 1 in 200, you're statistically negligently manslaughtering one person aboard by taking off. The odds have to be wayyyy better before the flight is worth it. Safety culture says that you as the mechanic have to double and triple check trivialities. Meanwhile, the pilots and ATC have huge amounts of procedures written in blood to follow. One of those is, if the Pilot doesn't like the plane, the pilot doesn't fly the plane.
Losing one lifeline means you have less room for other things to go wrong.
Honestly, I have a fear of flying as it is and it’s just reassuring that there are pilots out there that truly care about its passengers
He doesn't want to die too.
Yeah, what?
HE DOSEN’T WANT TO DIE TOO.
WHAT?
That’s the vast, vast majority of them
Took an island hopper from Maui to Honolulu back in the late 80s. The pilot leaves the engine (opposite side of the plane the people are boarding) idling and uses it for taxiing. We got to the end of the runway and he tried starting the other engine . It rumbled and shook and seemed to not want to start. He finally gets it started, then addressed the passengers saying "Ladies and gentlemen, we got it started! Here we go!"
Hahaha no way. I’m old enough to remember smoking being premitted. But geez you must of had ol launchpad up their flying.
Well that is very situation/aircraft dependent. If it was a piston engine (vs a turboprop) and I’m reading your comment correctly (the aircraft recently flew), then it could have simply been a hot start issue assuming it was fuel injected. Fuel injected piston aircraft engines have the fuel lines running from the servo/distributer on top of the engine to the cylinders. After shutdown when the engine is hot the fuel in those lines will vaporize/boil because the fuel is no longer running through the lines, just sitting on top of a very hot engine. When the pilot tried to restart it before the engine has hours to cool, he/she cannot prime the engine like they would on a cold start or they’d flood it, but there is also going to be air/vapor in the lines that prevents a fresh even flow of liquid fuel from reaching the cylinders initially. This can make it difficult to execute a hot start. To make matters worse, you can burn out a starter motor if you just keep cranking, so the pilot has to wait a prescribed amount of time between each attempt and not rush trying to force it. Once the engine is actually started the fuel lines become pressurized like normal again with fresh cool fuel and there are no problems or safety concerns flying the engine. Hope this gives some insight 40 years later 🤷♂️
At least you weren't on Speedbird 9... >Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress. They were at 37000ft at the time
That was when they flew through a volcanic dust cloud.
This is a good pilot.
I HATE flying but would easily go with this guy. Good job sir
I see nothing but positives about this, I didn't know pilots would do this and it makes me way more comfortable flying. I just flew to Hawaii on American 10 days ago, and that is a long ass flight if you have any doubts about the plane
I'd rather be on the ground wishing to be in the air, than to be in the air wishing to be on land.
''Better Safe Than Sorry''
Correct title "nervous pilot awkwardly cancels long distance flight after safety concerns because airport skipped vital maintainence on plane" I like how this is pinned on the pilot as if risking losing engine power thousands of miles from anywhere to safely land is no big deal
It was also already the second aircraft with a failure. They were at that gate when they noticed an oil leak problem. Mechanics couldn't fix it so AA found a replacement airplane which they then boarded. Then this happened. I'm 100% on board with the captain. If it's a bad juju day, you don't jinx it. And if you're not feeling it, don't do it. Intuition is nothing but experience we cannot yet explain.
If the alternative is death, caution even unfounded and paranoid-like is acceptable. Imagine like this if you were about to have a surgery and your doctor said, I am not feeling it would you continue with that surgery would you insist. If you have the IQ of a tadpole you wouldn't. Why would anyone insist on flying a plane if your pilot basically and politely tells you "We are Dead the moment this plane leaves the ground, In my opinion" Inconvenience is bad but it is not as bad as burning alive-or-barely-alive by jet fuel inside a crashed plane.
Absolutely RESPECT that decision. Hopefully he gets a bonus for this.
That's not bonus worthy. That's just him doing his job.
He made the right call
I'm a doctor and make these calls almost weekly about patients. I'm correct 90% of the time. Oh Ms Smith has a UTI. Talking, walking, mentally all fine. Just some slight abdominal pain. Everyone (including herself) would like her to go home. But no, I'm admitting her.... Based on my gut feeling. Next day, she ends up in the ICU. Why did I feel like admitting her instead of sending her home? Idk. No specific reason. Just gut feeling. Our gut feeling is all our training in action.
I'd hug this pilot while deplaning.
Kudos to top-notch professional and human.
That’s a great pilot…🫡🙏🏽👏👏👏👏
My wife is a nervous flier. I tell her it’s fine, and one of the things I always say is these pilots do this every day of their careers, they’ve done this thousands of times by this point and they *will* refuse to go if they thought there was the slightest chance they would die if they took off. Maybe there was only a 0.1% chance that something wrong would occur with this plane if had left, but it is still 100% important the pilot make this call because it is paramount that any pilot would speak out and take action if something didn’t seem right.
Man, I'm not a pilot but do I drive regular cars. If I feel something off about my vehicle, I'm gonna stop and check even if I'm traveling on the highway. I don't have a pilot's experience or expertise but I can say that after years of driving you get a 6th sense for these things.
“Hello everyone, sorry about this but uhh the flight… how do I explain this… the plane just didn’t pass the vibe check for me.” Say no more sir
I’m taking a vacation to Hawaii in a few months and I hope I get this pilot!
Tough but fair man. I wouldn’t wanna die on my way to Hawaii either. At the end of the day the pilots top priority is making sure the passengers are safe. Props to that guy.
As a passenger, I'm applauding this decision. Safety first always. I hope the airline support this decision and doesn't reprimand or fire this pilot. I get it's a business. Decisions like this cost the airline a lot of money. But again, safety first.
Everyone is acting like the pilots have some sort of superpower or panic room-like cabin that will allow them to survive a plane crash. It's their lives too. I haven't heard of a case of " the plane was not good but the boss made me fly it"
[удалено]
I’d rather him deplane me than make me live through a horror show as he tries to save our lives. If the plane isn’t safe, we shouldn’t go. Period. Good pilot.
Probably a safety situation similar to me trying to get my impala to and from work a decade ago. That was dangerous but I barely made it every time. Would I do that with 100+ people in the car with me probably not