Two Air France pilots are reportedly under suspension after physically fighting each other in the cockpit after takeoff. French newspaper La Tribune reported that one pilot struck the other before the pilots grabbed each other by the collars and an object was thrown. Cabin crew reportedly intervened and one crew member is said to have acted as a sort of peacemaker for the duration of the flight. The altercation is said to have taken place in June on a flight from Geneva to Paris and is giving shades of Beavis and Butthead Do America, only the people who are supposed to be flying the damn plane are the ones out of pocket. The cabin crew members who had to step in may have seen similar behavior from passengers, but the idea of pilots fighting beggars belief. [Editor’s Note: Clearly Thomas has never wagered on illegal underground pilot fights held late at night in regional airports all over the world – JT]
An in-cabin fight seems like a fairly big safety issue, so it shouldn’t be surprising that Air France is reportedly experiencing other safety incidents. La Tribune also reports of two instances when Air France pilots forgot to fire up engines prior to takeoff, [Editor’s Note: How does that happen? – JT] while BEA, France’s air safety bureau, recently released some information on a fuel leak that happened in late 2020 aboard an Air France Airbus A330 from Brazzaville, Congo to Paris. Here’s what the BEA report has to say. Missing a Lincoln Town Car in fuel shortly after takeoff seems pretty sketchy, and typical safety procedure is to shut down the engine on the side of the plane that fuel is most likely leaking from. Unfortunately, BEA says that didn’t happen, even as the flight turned around for a landing. While it’s nice to know that the passengers were able to carry on with their days, flouting proper safety procedure is not a good look for Air France and raises some serious questions about the airline’s culture of safety. I understand that the past few years have been really stressful and unusual for the airline industry, but that’s no excuse for cutting corners.
Equally troubling is Air France’s statement to The Guardian on recent incidents, which comes across as rather flippant and defensive. While a statement on following BEA recommendations is nice, defending pilots flouting safety procedures during emergencies isn’t a good look. Air France needs to be held accountable for misconduct in the name of passenger safety and airline industry integrity. If flouting of safety procedure ends up brushed off for a flag bearing airline, what message does that send smaller players? The airline noted that it flew thousands of flights daily and the report mentioned only four such safety incidents. Air France pilots unions have insisted that security is paramount to all pilots and defended pilot actions during emergency situations. All photos courtesy of Air France Why am I getting visions of Ricky-Bobby and the whole altercation ended in a warm embrace and a big, wet smooch? Assuming you’re an American you really shouldn’t be throwing those stones. The CEO was so green with jealousy that British Airways was doing very well with its Concorde service (it actually turned profit due to both London and New York being the financial cities). He happened to have a very close friend who happened to be the Airbus CEO so one little favour led to Airbus rescinding the operation certification for Concorde. Source: “Supersonic Secrets: The Unofficial Biography of Concorde”(2003) by Rob Lewis. Skipping the before take off checklist is very unprofessional but modern planes have alarms to alert the pilots the plane isn’t configured for take off. “No, you blithering slime, that’s my baguette!” This is why we can’t have nice things. They seem to spread by diffusion, colonizing new forums when they appear. Only stopping when the host is dead and moving on to infect other previously healthy locations of discourse. I bet what they were fighting over was something stupidly French, like a disagreement over cheese, or they both cheated on their wives with the same mistress. I’m not anti-French, I just dislike their attitude, culture, and what they did to Haiti. In all seriousness, don’t throw an entire country of 60M people away because of our checkered past. It’s not like any “western” country has a perfect record. Our curlture is vibrant, and I bet your comment on French attitude is due to you having met French people from Paris. We all have a problem with them! I do find it funny though you still essentially said ‘Except those damn Parisians, the Frenchest Frenchies around! Nobody likes them!’ Checkered past is one thing, but Haiti is a different level. Given how thoroughly screwed they were first by France proper, then by the IMF. Then just told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, like it was their fault. I suppose what bothers me more though is the notion that French people are ‘beyond’ such troglodyte notions of ‘race’, and people in France are all just ‘French’. It’s objectively bullshit, and any attempts to bring that up results in pearl clutching and whining of importing ‘le woke’ notions from the US. The official policy is that if you have a French ID you’re French and you’re my fellow countryman. It may be bullshit to you but it also kinda works for us.
