Cathay "Asia's World City" Delivery Pilot Fired for Fly-by

[Matt Molnar]

[youtubetp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7hpVH1IAQM[/youtubene of Cathay Pacific's most senior captains has been fired a few weeks after he buzzed their blasted their new 777-300ER ("Asia's World City", B-KPF) just 28 feet above the runway at Boeing Paine Field at 322 mph. Despite not having sought formal permission from the airline before performing the maneuver, the Cathay VPs and senior management on board are said to have been thrilled when it happened...that is until a video began circulating on the Internet and Hong Kong aviation officials found out about it.

:arrow: Jumbo jet pilot sacked for 'fly-by' at 28 feet (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3427696.ece) [London Times]

[Midnight Mike]

Not sure what the big deal is, it was a delivery flight. These kinds of things are quite common, low fly-by, tip of the wings.... Sheesh.....

[flyboy 28]

"...negative Ghostrider, the pattern is full" :roll:

[T-Bird76]

Not sure what the big deal is, it was a delivery flight. These kinds of things are quite common, low fly-by, tip of the wings.... Sheesh.....

Simple Mike it’s a breach of company policy and in this case he broke it with a brand new 777-300ER. The termination was justified, next time he should just ask. This guy should have realized it’s not his toy to play with. Blind arrogance at its best.

[Matt Molnar]

Fly-bys are common, but flying a big jet with enough fuel for a trans-Pacific flight 330 mph less than 30 feet off the ground has much higher potential to get messy than most. A random wind gust could have made them all toast.

[Midnight Mike]

Well, here is the real reason for the problem.....


He said: “Wilkinson was very much one of the elite in Cathay Pacific and would have been very chummy with the airline executives he was flying that day. If no one else had found out about it the incident would probably have gone no further, but once it began circulating on the internet and Hong Kong’s Civil Aviation Authority got hold of it, that was the end of him.”

Nobody is going to fess up, but, everybody knew what was going to be done :wink:

Hell, if it was that big of a deal, they could have grounded the airplane after the incident & found another pilot to ferry the aircraft home....

People at Cathay are just embarrased because the incident was recorded on youtube.com

[Midnight Mike]

Simple Mike it’s a breach of company policy and in this case he broke it with a brand new 777-300ER. The termination was justified, next time he should just ask. This guy should have realized it’s not his toy to play with. Blind arrogance at its best.

Tommy

You know who I work for, & these type of fly-by approvals are more or less a wink-wink type of thing, everybody knows it is going to happen.

Also, this was one of their top pilots & he probably did something similar before......


the Cathay VPs and senior management on board are said to have been thrilled when it happened...that is until a video began circulating on the Internet and Hong Kong aviation officials found out about it.

[AA 777]

To me its ironic as hell. The CEO is on the plane and they toast the captain upon landing and then he gets tossed :roll: The only thing that stands out to me is he was above 250 kts below 10,000. He will probably either fight this and get his job back or be a DEC at Emirates next month! It would be interesting to see how this plays out.....

P.S. Did anyone else see that he was making 471,750 USD a year?? :shock:

[PHL Approach]

How bout to the person that recorded that video. That person pretty much costs the guy his job. You already made the mistake of putting it on Youtube. The least you could do is keep it up so the CAPT could look at it and say "That's bad@ss!". Nope.. now he doesn't even have the video to at least have the ability to get that thrill/rush when a flyby happens and to say to family whatever that it was him.

[Midnight Mike]

To me its ironic as hell. The CEO is on the plane and they toast the captain upon landing and then he gets tossed :roll: The only thing that stands out to me is he was above 250 kts below 10,000. He will probably either fight this and get his job back or be a DEC at Emirates next month! It would be interesting to see how this plays out.....

P.S. Did anyone else see that he was making 471,750 USD a year?? :shock:

Don't forget he was the Cathay Chief Pilot, was probably a simulator Instructor & Check Airman, & also had a bunch of other jobs which would warrant a higher salary....

[PhilDernerJr]

If planes aren't supposed to fly at 28 feet, how are htey supposed to land?! :mrgreen:

Isn't 250mph the speed limit under FL100? 322 is....kinda fast.

[adam613]

Isn't 250mph the speed limit under FL100? 322 is....kinda fast.

Close...250 knots indicated airspeed below 10,000 feet MSL (14 CFR Section 91.117). If you had a good tailwind, you could easily go faster than 300 mph without exceeding the seed limit...

[nwafan20]

322 mph is only 280 knots, so he would need about a 30 knot (34 mph) tailwind.

[Matt Molnar]

How bout to the person that recorded that video. That person pretty much costs the guy his job. You already made the mistake of putting it on Youtube. The least you could do is keep it up so the CAPT could look at it and say "That's bad@ss!". Nope.. now he doesn't even have the video to at least have the ability to get that thrill/rush when a flyby happens and to say to family whatever that it was him.
It is unfortunate whoever posted it on YouTube seems to have bowed to Cathay's baseless legal threats. Unless of course they simply paid him to take it down.

[flyboy 28]

I'd still like to see the video, rather than the gif compilation.

I'm sure it will surface eventually.

[heeshung]

I think the media did a horrible job of reporting the story. When I watched Inside Edition's, well, edition on the topic, I got very angry. As they showed the video, the narrator said, "Just listen as the spectators exclaim in horror." The video showed the jet skimming across the runway, with people in the foreground faced towards the jet and away from the camera VERY OBVIOUSLY cheering the pilot on. That was a pure lie on the media's side. They were giving him the thumbs up, waving at him, and jumping up and down. They were certainly NOT horrified. Inside Edition also said it was a fly-by at the "Seattle airport". While I've only seen the Inside Edition edition so far, I'll bet other newscasts portray the event in the same way. They make it seem way worse than it actually is, with the cheering being an obvious example.

[Matt Molnar]

Here's the original video:

[liveleaktp://www.liveleak.com/view?i=00a_1204000744[/liveleak

[wunaladreamin]

All debating aside, that was friggen badass!

[mirrodie]

That doesnt look like a fast approach

[hiss srq]

That is a REALLY low and slow approach with some serious nose up attitude.

[Matt Molnar]

Serious wing flex too.

[Matt Molnar]

Some guy made an illustration estimating how low the plane actually was.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/liem/2299961962/

[cancidas]

from FlightGlobal:


Cathay chief 777 pilot fired after low-level flypast stunt
By Nicholas Ionides

Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways has fired a senior pilot for carrying out an unauthorised low-level flypast in Seattle during the delivery flight of a Boeing 777-300ER last month.

The incident took place on 30 January at Everett Airport immediately after Cathay took delivery of the new 777-300ER. After takeoff for Hong Kong the captain – chief 777 pilot Ian Wilkinson - returned the aircraft to the airfield and made a low-level flypast with the landing gear up.

One industry source close to Cathay tells flightglobal.com that the aircraft was at just 28ft-30ft above the ground.

http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getAsset.aspx?ItemID=21617
©Matt Cawby/www.microvaultradio.com


Watch the withdrawn video of the Cathay Pacific low-level flypast here ...

On board were around 50 or 60 people, according to another industry source, including Cathay chairman Christopher Pratt.

Cathay confirms that “the pilot in command of the flight concerned had been dismissed as he had not sought nor obtained the necessary company approval to undertake such a fly-by. A second pilot involved has also been subject to disciplinary proceedings. Both disciplinary actions are subject to an appeals process”.

http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getAsset.aspx?ItemID=21618
©Matt Cawby/www.microvaultradio.com


The airline adds that “Cathay Pacific has a well established approval process for fly-bys and a number had been conducted in the past as display flights at air shows with proper approval in place.

“The approval process was not followed in this case, resulting in disciplinary actions. Following the incident, Cathay Pacific has issued a notice to all cockpit crew reminding them of the company’s policy for conducting fly-bys.”

Cathay says it is still conducting an internal investigation into the incident, “including the collection of flight data, and interviews with the crew involved”.

It also says it has “taken the initiative to inform the Civil Aviation Department of the case and a report will be submitted to the department once the investigation is complete”.

The first officer was not dismissed as he reportedly did not know permission had not been obtained for the manoeuvre but he has been removed from training duties for six months.

Watch the withdrawn video of the Cathay Pacific low-level flypast here ...

[Nonstop2AUH]

Some years ago, Virgin Blue hired a former CX pilot who had been fired for throwing peanuts at the CEO in a bar. So perhaps Virgin will give this guy a job too.

"A Cathay Pacific pilot fired for throwing peanuts at his chief executive has been hired by Sir Richard Branson, head of Australian airline, Virgin Blue.

Captain Scott Munro was suspended for gross misconduct at a function by Cathay, then sacked and two appeals were rejected.

A Virgin Blue spokesman told the South China Morning Post: "If he threw some peanuts at our senior executives, certainly if he threw some peanuts at Richard, I think the worst thing that could happen is that Richard would throw some peanuts back at him."

In his application to Virgin Blue, Captain Munro had told them about the incident at Cathay. He said he threw peanuts at the ceiling in the Dakota Bar, near Chek Lap Kok Airport, and some landed near chief executive David Turnbull.

In April, Mr Turnbull said the pilot was dismissed because, "he threw things at me. He's the captain of the ship. It's not what you expect of him".

Cathay Pacific declined to comment."