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The pilots whose plane went 150 miles off course a few days ago were using their laptops. What should happen to them?

Standard policy is that they'll be fired. Should they be kept? Should something worse than firing be done?

CNN article here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/26/airliner.flyby/index.html
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4 answerers thought this was unfair.

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mzserena
mzserena
October 27, 2009 06:18 AM
Frankly, they should be fired. I also think that they should have to be put into some sort of flight simulator that will show them first hand what could have happened. Far worse things than going 150 miles off course could have happened. What would have happened if they had slammed nose first into a mountain or ran out of fuel? How many lives would have been lost because of negligence?

Not only were they looking at their laptops, at least one of them had their headset turned off. It's pure negligence and it makes me wonder about how many other times, with their 30 years experience, they've nearly missed airports or worse, another plane.
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crackpotpr...
crackpotpr...
October 27, 2009 02:59 PM
They should be fired. Pilots should know better than this. If it is illegal to text while driving, it should be illegal for pilots to Facebook while flying.
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keepontryi...
keepontryi...
October 27, 2009 08:13 PM
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:r755h0xpzNxXnM:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Ntsb_seal.gif

I think it's too early to tell, since the NTSB hasn't finished their investigation yet. It's sort of hard to imagine a scenario where they should keep their jobs, in my opinion, and honestly I don't know how much more they can, except take their pilots license, I suppose, but I don't really think that would be necessary unless the investigation shows something really bad like drug use.

I do have a suggestion for Christmas gifts for them: Flight simulator games for their laptops? OK, I'm bad.

Here's the Today show's report
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bowrz58Ygtg
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psionandy
psionandy
October 27, 2009 09:34 PM
If standard policy is that they should be fired... then they should be fired. They shouldn't be punished differently because the news organizations have used them to fill up the space that they were using to cover balloon boy.

However if behavior needs be be changed, and policy needs to be updated then the airlines should put these changes in place to prevent future occurrences of this sort of thing. Going after these people and not improving the system, and the institutional problems that airlines have is a waste of time and won't make anyone any safer.
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