http://www.thestreet.com/story/10609062/1/pilot-whose-gun-went-off-back-on-job.html
Glad to see this guy got his job back.
Glad to see this guy got his job back.
...Nobody was injured. Langenhahn was fired soon afterwards, but a federal arbitrator has ordered that he be reinstated after the US Airline Pilots Association filed a grievance.
Mr. Rogers,Sharkman,
We should assume the pilot was correctly following procedures otherwise it is unlikely that his original "punishment" would be reversed.
If the re-holstering procedure had been designed to be perfectly safe for a normal person to carry out in a confined position (an aircraft pilot's seat) then there would inevitably be a measure of negligence involved in an ND. However, many FFDOs had complained that the procedure was difficult to carry out and that the holster lock was potentially dangerous. This moves the responsibility for the discharge to the TSA. Critical procedures on the flight deck are, to the greatest extent possible, designed to eliminate error by 110%. In this case, barring any other evidence to the contrary, it seems the design of the equipment and the procedures involved, made the occurrence of an AD matter of "when" not "how".
If you had ever flown a commercial aircraft, particular older generation models, you would know that even taking a book from your flight bag risks back damage because of the contortions involved.
Sharkman,
Just so you do not think I speak from ignorance I retired with 25 years of commercial airline time and a total of 40 years as a pilot.
Most of the cockpit defense concept was screwed up. The airline I worked for purchased hundreds of tasers as an interim solution to cockpit defense. They checked out most of the pilots on taser use and as far as I know the tasers are still in storage somewhere having never been issued. Apparently someone thought taser use might interfere with cockpit instruments. OK, I got a choice between having my throat cut or getting interference with the cockpit instruments - let me think about this for a while.
This subject has been beaten to death, but sufficient to say, the whole matter of arming pilots was handled badly. Frankly, our government does not trusts pilots, many of who are ex-military with security clearances, but it trusted some of the low IQ, equal-opportunity, people that it took on in an attempt to fill SM positions when the expansion in SM manning took place.