Comments by "Glamdolly" (@glamdolly30) on "Mentour Pilot"
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The senior person on the team - in this case, the Captain Marc Dubois - is ALWAYS ultimately responsible!
Marc Dubois failed in a Captain's most critical role, to provide leadership in a crisis. Had he stepped up immediately and decisively when he found his co-pilots taking the plane to disaster, 226 lives might have been saved.
Married 58-year-old Dubois was tired, having been partying all weekend in Rio De Janeiro with his mistress, an air hostess and budding opera singer. Ominously, he was heard to say: "One hour's sleep is not enough'. The cockpit flight recorder revealed he was distracted during pre-flight checks, reading a magazine and listening to opera. All indications are he didn't bring his A-game, or much focus, to managing that fateful flight. This was likely due in part to sleep deprivation, but he may have been mentally consumed with a new love affair (his mistress was also killed on the flight).
Captain Dubois made a surprising choice, in putting the least experienced of his two co-pilots in charge - 32 year old Pierre Bonin - while he headed off for a sleep break. Dubois knew a significant electrical storm was coming, arguably he should have remained on the flight deck until they were safely through it, or left his more experienced co-pilot David Robert, 37, at the controls. Robert had 6,500 flying hours, against Bonin's modest 2,900.
That mistake was bad, but Dubois' failings when he was called back minutes later to find the cockpit in total chaos, would seal the fate of everyone on board. As the Captain, Dubois should have taken charge of the crisis the moment he returned to the flight deck. There was no time to lose!
That meant kicking the most junior pilot Bonin, out of his seat immediately, and taking the controls from him. That move alone would likely have saved the day, as it would have removed Bonin's unseen, white-knuckle, death-grip as he pulled back on the side-stick, a major factor in the crash.
Sitting in Bonin's seat, it would not have taken Captain Dubois long to work out what went so badly wrong, and correct it. But by the time Bonin surrendered control to Robert, and his major role in the disaster was exposed, the plane was just one minute from impact and unrecoverable.
Equally catastrophic, was communication between the three pilots. On answering their emergency call to come back, the Captain did not identify the cause of the plane's extreme stall from Bonin and Robert. He could only hope to do that by direct, calm and effective interaction with his two co-pilots. After all, they were present throughout the plane's sudden, mysterious journey from calm to crisis - and their actions had almost certainly caused it!
But the cockpit voice recorder revealed that no such conversation between the Captain and co-pilots had taken place. At no point did Captain Dubois ask Bonin and Robert to explain the sequence of events to him, and their own, most recent actions, in the mere 9 minutes since he'd exited the flight deck.
Here's the transcript from the dramatic moment the Captain returns and is reunited with his two co-pilots on the flight deck, all Hell let loose as the plane drops towards the Atlantic at a dizzying rate of 10,000 feet per minute:
Capt Dubois: "What the Hell are you doing!"
Bonin: "We've lost control of the plane!"
Robert: "We've totally lost control of the plane! We don't understand at all... We've tried everything!"
These ridiculously passive, negative and unhelpful statements by the two pilots are apparently accepted at face value by Captain Dubois, when he should have challenged them and done some probing. He needed to get the men out of panic mode, which is negative, and get them explaining logically and calmly how they arrived at this point - positive action. Logic dictates it was far more likely to be the fault of the human beings operating the plane, than the plane itself, which they are stupidly blaming! As the subsequent inquiry conformed, the plane remained 100% flyable throughout.
The best leaders are problem solvers, focused, calm and methodical in a crisis, prioritising solutions over recriminations.
If Dubois had only stayed cool, asked the right questions, listened to the answers and used his many years of experience, this could have ended differently. But under that level of pressure, against the clock, his best chance of turning it around was to simply get in the driving seat and take the controls - exactly as a Captain should!
Instead Dubois' backside remained passively in the jump seat throughout the unfolding tragedy. It's interesting that Pierre Bonin was at the controls for most of the terrifying descent, with David Robert taking over from him just one minute from impact at 2.14am. I have to wonder about the dynamics at play between these three men's personalities.
The senior one who should have been in charge, Captain Dubois, was effectively absent throughout (even after he returned to the cockpit and was physically present), and the most inexperienced and junior pilot was literally in the driving seat until one minute before oblivion! How did that happen?
'Mentour Pilot's brilliant videos frequently focus on the role personalities play, in air disasters like this one. I ask myself why the youngest and most inexperienced pilot did not relinquish the controls, even as the situation escalated. Nor did his superiors assert themselves with him and demand he surrender to their authority. Was Pierre Bonin a confident, perhaps even dominant personality, the kind even senior staff struggled to confront or say "No" to?
The difference between a safe, uneventful flight and an air disaster, can literally come down to the random flip of a coin, the timing of a pilot's rest period, or even his choice of deputy during an electrical storm. Terrifying!
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I worked in television for 20 years, an arena that attracts more than its fair share of narcissists, egomaniacs and sociopaths! The toxic bullying in that cockpit broke my heart, and was sadly familiar to me in my former work in television.
So often the last people who should be given power over others, are the very people who get it. And of course they pursued that power in order to abuse it, and those unfortunate enough to find themselves answerable to them and their vile, sadistic conduct.
My heart breaks for the first officer, whose last hours alive were gleefully made miserable by that monstrous Captain. No doubt he had a long history of workplace bullying. In his sixties, I believe his fragile ego was threatened by a younger man, so he enjoyed the chance to humiliate him to elevate his own status (in his mind, though in no one else's). It's no better than schoolyard bullying and it's totally unacceptable.
If only he had been reported before for such conduct, his career as a pilot could have ended - and all those people he killed with his vile conduct might still be alive.
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@koryano321 I never said Bonin was faultless, I made clear throughout my post he caused the disastrous, extended stall!
My point stands, effective leadership would have averted disaster. But on top of Bonin's error we had a weak Captain, so unassertive and ineffectual, on returning to the chaotic cockpit his backside never left the jump seat! He literally should have got into the driving seat and taken charge immediately, if he had he could have saved the plane and every life. But unaccountably, did not. This crash shocked many because of the speed with which the plane went from happily cruising on autopilot at 35,000 ft, to hitting the Atlantic Ocean - just 3 minutes and 30 seconds.
You touched on a very important point I didn't reference in my earlier post - pilot training. That was clearly revealed to be inadequate by the Air France cockpit voice recorder which told the story. And undoubtedly the cockpit design which hid pilots' actions from each other so 'the left hand didn't know what the right was doing' was a big factor, as two pilots failed to see Bonin pulling back on the side stick.
As with pretty much every disaster, more than one factor combined to create tragedy. But I feel it's unfair and inaccurate to place most of the blame on Bonin and let Captain Dubois off the hook!
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@francischabot1412 Great insight. Of course it's very easy for us to express shock and horror at the mistakes and oversights made in the confines of that cockpit, between that crew, on that night - and the disastrous, deadly repercussions for everyone on board.
If this tragedy tells us anything, it's surely how easily human error and its best friend, assumption, can sink us.
Lessons can of course be learned from this crash in professional, operational terms. But recognising the far broader, more universal and profound nature of those human mistakes, is key to ensuring nothing quite so disastrous happens in any other context.
That said, anyone who believes human error can be eradicated, may as well try to turn back tides, or stop rain falling!
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@deirdrejohnson9028 The critical difference is that you were small children - this crash partly occurred because a near-adult, ie a 16-year-old young man was in the hot seat, and he took some decisive actions on the controls that a small child simply wouldn't have done.
Also, had he been a small child, his father would have promptly turfed him out of the seat immediately there was a problem, and taken charge of the controls. Instead the crisis was not addressed immediately because the 16-year-old remained in the driving seat during the first stage of the crisis, and assumed the pilots were telling him to take certain actions on the controls - when obviously he hadn't a clue what he was doing and should have been hauled out without delay!
Disasters like this one are almost always the result of a number of unfortunate factors all coming into play together, creating the 'perfect storm' to tragedy. The age of the supposed 'child' playing pilot when the accident began to unfold is surely one factor.
I suspect the children's father the Captain was a dominant character, whose weaker colleagues didn't feel able to challenge him. So the Captain knew he could bring his kids into the cockpit without any resistance - the fact he took several liberties beyond that by a/ letting the kids sit in his seat and b/ allowing them to action certain controls, supports my theory there was an unhealthy balance of power that over-favoured the Captain in that particular cockpit crew.
An all-powerful, dominant Captain and weak first officer/engineer(s) is a dynamic that's been a recurrent contributing factor in air crashes. When there's a big discrepancy in status/perceived status between pilots, it can make for poor communication, poor problem-solving and ineffective time and control management.
It's a total outrage that one man thought he had the right to play fast and loose with the lives of over 70 unwitting people, just so he could show off to his kids and make them feel special.
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Very surprised 'Mentour Pilot' accepted without question, the unlikely explanation given for the pilots' 90 minute silence. This incident had to be the subject of a great deal of aviation industry gossip at the time and since - and a number of different theories must have circulated that don't include 'talking shop'!
The men could not possibly have forgotten about air traffic control or 'accidentally' missed their and others' multiple attempts to contact them, for an entire one and a half hours, purely because they were discussing work rotas. That just isn't credible.
Those two guys were up to something they wouldn't admit, when asked over the radio and afterwards in employer and police interviews. The fact their airline subsequently claimed to have 'lost' the cockpit voice recordings is also very suspect, and points to a conspiracy of silence - as does the fact both pilots were fired so soon after the incident.
So what REALLY happened that was so engrossing, it rendered two senior airline pilots mute for all that time? What kind of audio could be so damaging to an airline, that they potentially suppressed the CVR? And is it really likely fighter jets weren't scrambled to check out a commercial plane that had been up in the air, totally incommunicado, for an entire 90 minutes? After all this was America, post 9-11, it beggars belief the threat of terrorism wasn't a top operational priority at that time!
Isn't it far more likely fighter jets DID go up there and take a look, but that what they saw in the cockpit was so shocking/damaging to ALL commercial airlines, they colluded in keeping it out of the public domain? As others have commented, the most feasible explanation is that both men fell asleep. It's certainly possible, and would go some way to explaining their reticence in explaining themselves to ATC, their bosses, and the authorities.
But is it really likely two working colleagues would fall so deeply asleep, and for such an extended time, that they'd give themselves away by totally losing contact with the ground? We're told the two pilots had never flown together before, in which case it's harder to believe they'd be so relaxed in each other's company they would be unprofessional enough to nod off. They were not even sleep deprived or jet lagged!
We're told they'd never co-piloted together before, but that doesn't mean they hadn't met, or indeed weren't good friends - they may have known each other well. We're also told the Captain's wife met up with her husband the night before the flight, went out for dinner with him (while the co-pilot dined alone), and stayed with him in his hotel. Could there be a reason the Captain's wife has become a part of the official story? Is her role to ensure no one's mind turns to suspicions of homosexuality between the two pilots?
Because the unusual, total lack of contact from the cockpit for an entire 90 minutes does of course point to the possibility of sexual activity. Were the two men engaged in highly unprofessional, sexual acts that distracted them from their duties? Such a serious breach of discipline and professionalism could explain the missing cockpit voice recorder (a cover up by the airline, to avoid the global media headlines and scandal that could ruin their business).
Could a shocking scene have been witnessed by fighter jets sent to investigate - then covered up at the highest level, because of the damage such a scandal would do to public confidence in the entire aviation industry, still recovering after the Twin Towers attack?
The claim that the Captain's wife was with him the night before (so presumably she was also on that flight), raises another intriguing possibility. Was she actually present in the cockpit with her husband and his colleague - and a threesome occurred? Sounds far-fetched I know, but they say 'swinging' is a popular hobby among middle aged, middle class people!
Maybe the Captain and his wife had not sent his co-pilot off to eat alone the night before, but had invited him to join them at the restaurant for dinner? Did the three strike up a rapport in the relaxed, candlelit setting, formalities were dropped, and next day on that long flight, they took things much further than they should have done behind the secured door (gives a whole new meaning to 'Cockpit' lol!)? Who knows. The infamous 'Mile High Club' could well be a bigger fascination for airline staff, than for passengers!
The other, less salacious possibilities, are that laptops played a different role in the incident than the men admitted. Did the two colleagues get engrossed in watching porn and 'take their eye off the ball' (at least the ball that mattered - their jobs!) Or were they doing online gambling, in a very full-on, all-consuming way? They may have mentioned the laptops precisely because they knew an investigation would prove they had been using them. So they were then forced to come up with a more innocent explanation of what they were doing on the laptops, and so said it was work-related stuff.
It's doubtful the public will ever hear more details about this strange incident. I feel whatever truly happened during that mysterious, 90 minutes of non-communication between plane and ground, neither the pilots, their airline, nor the powers that be, wanted it to emerge. And decisive action was taken from on high to ensure that it did not emerge. The two pilots were speedily sacked without an enquiry, and the airline suppressed the cockpit voice recording and the findings of fighter jets that, in all likelihood WERE scrambled to investigate possible terrorist activity - but found something else entirely!
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I think the video concludes with great wisdom. It's too simplistic to dismiss the cause of an air crash to just 'Pilot Error', the story is always way bigger than one person's mistakes on the day of the incident.
I want to know why the SYSTEM allowed an individual who repeatedly showed significant skill deficiencies, to not only become a commercial pilot but to get promoted to Captain? That this man was so determined to be promoted to that senior role, despite struggling in his tests, tells a story of its own. It suggests he put personal ambition and gain above the safety of the public, and that points to arrogance, irresponsibility and self-serving priorities that don't serve the ends of public safety.
Had he been a decent, responsible human being with some humility, he'd surely have taken time to reflect on the fact he was struggling with his pilot exams/tests. Then he'd have privately asked himself some serious questions about his own life and priorities, and whether piloting commercial aircraft was the right career for him.
The Captain's last words were a belated acknowledgement he had messed up. But there were two other men in the cockpit with him that day, who could potentially have identified his mistake and confronted and corrected it. Why didn't they? More to the point - why was communication so poor between the three pilots? To me it hints he was a dominant personality who pulled rank and didn't react well to anyone challenging him, no matter how politely. This personality type is sometimes a feature of serious plane crashes involving pilot error - usually a Captain with a God complex, whose colleague/colleagues were too scared to point out his mistakes and address them before it was too late.
I wonder how much the interpersonal/professional relationships between pilots are studied during their training? How well those operating the plane communicate together, and that they respect each other and feel 'safe' enough to troubleshoot problems without anyone taking offence or bullying the other, is surely crucial - especially in a crisis when good communication and mutual respect can mean the difference between life and death.
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Piloting commercial aircraft requires unusually close proximity between colleagues, in the confined space of the cockpit. In a high pressure, emergency situation, the dynamics between the pilot and first officer, can mean the difference between life and death. This team got it right, and the result was a non-fatal accident. I'm glad the accident report mentioned that, those guys' remarkable professionalism deserved to be acknowledged.
If the two pilot professionals at the plane controls don't communicate effectively or worse, don't get on, the results can literally be disastrous. More than once I've heard of initially inexplicable crashes, which the black box ultimately revealed were due to a breakdown in communication between a domineering, authoritarian captain, and his cowed co-pilot.
In once such case, the captain (early sixties, approaching retirement), spent the first 10 minutes of the flight putting his twenty-something first officer through a humiliating verbal test of his aviation knowledge, then berated him on his results. As a result, the younger man went silent, no doubt feeling embarrassed and angry at the totally unnecessary and unpleasant dressing down. He then failed to engage promptly and effectively with the captain, when he got the plane into difficulties and couldn't get out of it. The plane crashed with total loss of life.
In similar vein, there have been cases when a captain is failing to respond to an emergency effectively, but his co-pilot is too intimidated by him to take charge and save the plane before its too late to recover.
I imagine it's very possible for a captain to get a 'God complex'. It's a glamorous job, and positions of seniority will always be abused by one or two narcissistic types. That kind of alpha personality dominating the flight deck alongside a less experienced, unassertive or even submissive personality type, could be a recipe for bullying. If the two pilots in charge of a flight don't treat each other with equal respect and courtesy, passengers could be in for a bumpy ride!
I know there are industry rules/standards regarding cockpit etiquette, like a sterile environment (no gossiping), during take off. I'm curious to know if the subject of captain/first officer etiquette, and specifically bullying, is ever raised during pilot training?
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This particular air disaster has long enraged me. I cannot believe the arrogance of the Captain in playing fast and loose with everyone on board's lives, just so he could show off to his kids and make them feel special.
It suggests to me he was one of those Captains who dominated his co-pilot and colleagues, so they didn't feel able to contradict or challenge him on anything. He not only brought his kids into the cockpit without caring what they thought, he went several steps further by putting both kids in the driving seat, AND allowing them to action certain movements at the controls. Unbelievable!
It is surely telling that the little girl didn't cause any problems, but the 16-year-old boy did - and no wonder, he was a young man which meant he took dangerous actions on the controls that a small child would not, and critically once the plane was in trouble, he was likely too big to remove from the Captain's seat quickly, as he should have been. Instead, incredibly, his father let him stay in the hot seat, and the totally untrained teenager responded to instructions from the co pilot when it was a life-or-death crisis only for the professionals! You couldn't make it up. How terrifying to know a commercial plane can go from cruising with no problems to crashing into the ground within just 3 minutes. I know that will be on my mind every time I fly now, lol!
Was this pilot named and shamed over the crash in the media? I guess he and his kids were dead along with everyone else, so maybe there was no appetite to blame him. But it clearly was ultimately his fault entirely for letting his kids play pilots. Had I lost a loved one on that flight I would be livid with him!
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