<p>maybe snowball’s suggestion is what they meant by “laptop”. Sorry couldn’t resist.</p>
<p>Maybe it was a “lapdance” and not a “laptop.”</p>
<p>^^^ hahahaha I needed that laugh. Thanks GA2012MOM :)</p>
<p>I guess discipline has to be severe for those with hundreds of lives in their hands, but I hope their entire careers were looked into before revoking their licenses. </p>
<p>I guess I have a tiny bit of sympathy because I am in a profession that requires a license to practice (law). If I have a spotless career for 25 years then screw up one matter monumentally, should I lose my license and never be able to work again? I know, no matter how bad I mess up, no one dies. But what about doctors? A single instance of serious malpractice doesn’t seem to cause the loss of a medical license. Again, maybe because only one person dies at a time.</p>
<p>I think the difference with these particular pilots and a doctor would be one made an error on purpose, the other was an accident. Some surgeries have known complications; the surgeon didn’t do anything wrong on purpose, the surgery just didn’t go as planned. The pilots on the other hand knew that using their laptops while flying was against regulations, but chose to do so anyway. Surgeons try their best to help the patient, but sometimes the outcome isn’t what everyone wants.</p>
<p>Yes, you hate for someone reputation to be tarnished because of a lapse in judgement, but you would have thought that one of the two pilots would have thought about what they were doing. Unless this happens daily and we just are not aware.</p>
<p>I can see one pilot messing up, but two?</p>
<p>I think only pilots understand how miserably boring their jobs are - at least we want them to be boring, as opposed to gut wrenching moments of panic as they plummet to the ground. Cops understand this too - hours upon hours or boredom with random short periods of panic. I’m not making excuses, but I would go nuts sitting in a little room for hours with nothing to do. Well, that is what my business has become lately, but it’s not by choice.</p>
<p>:BB runs off to get a paper towel to wipe coffee off of her monitor:</p>
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<p>Surgeons make mistakes as well. Not all poor outcomes are strictly due to the inherent risks of the surgery. I spent the last two weeks with my parents because a surgeon forgot to order a standard pre-op drug for my father and two days post-op he nearly died (twice) from bilateral pulmonary embolisms. </p>
<p>Since my father lived, the worst part of this whole mess was that the surgeon at first refused to admit he made a mistake and delayed my father being seen by a new doctor. They thought we were being entirely unreasonable by not wanting the doctor who nearly killed him to do my father’s post-op follow up care. My father’s primary care doc at first went along with the surgeon but he came to see my dad in the hospital, read the chart for himself and, miraculously, suddenly my Dad had an new surgeon. </p>
<p>As the spouse of a military pilot, I’m well aware that a single mistake can be deadly. I think these pilots will have their licenses revoked and I believe that is the appropriate action. But I still feel tremendous sympathy for them, as the odds are very high that this is the only occupation they are trained to do.</p>
<p>I think the reason that doctors have to do something so egregious to lose their licenses is is because medical schools keep a cap on how many of them there are in our society. The military needs a far greater number of pilots than the civilian world does, so there are always more pilots to fill the slot, thus the higher standard.</p>
<p>cartera45, i won’t be going nuts if I get paid well and get to travel to different places for free. These people work probably only 10 days a month.</p>
<p>snowball,
no wonder they call it “cockpit”.</p>
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<p>Our firm has certainly defended hospitals in cases where the staff (doctors or nurses) were “impaired” (e.g. drunk nurse drops baby) and they haven’t lost their licenses. Alcoholic or addicted attorneys who are referred to the state bar for multiple missed deadlines, not showing up in court, etc. are routinely assigned mentors and sent to special counsellors to help them recover - some impaired attorneys are eventually disbarred but they are given quite a few chances to straighten up before that happens.</p>
<p>While practicing medicine or law while impaired isn’t the same as intentionally disobeying rules, it’s plenty dangerous and doesn’t lead to immediate loss of license. I guess it’s the potential scale of the harm that makes the difference.</p>
<p>It is very likely that this was not the first flight during which they passed the time on their laptops. A first timer wouild be more wary of his situation. This was complacency, and that is typically due to an established pattern of behavior. So, they are not losing their licenses for a single incident, but for being caught at doing something very risky and completely against the rules.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean to say all doctor’s errors were just due to “stuff happens”; I do know of too many cases of doctors that have been drinking before surgery, or too sick or tired to be operating. On the other hand, many have made “errors” through no fault of their own, but malpractice is just one negative to the job.</p>
<p>As a wife of a doctor and the mother/daughter/wife of those that have been involved with “stuff happens” as well as what I would consider negligence, I can see both sides; I have no understanding of what a pilot can and can’t have control over other than what I read.</p>
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<p>Yes, they will be losing their licenses for a single incident. The FAA is a tough governing board, as I would assume most passengers want them to be. </p>
<p>Further, I think it’s unfair to declare that this was clearly not the first time for these pilots. They are already going to lose their licenses; further damaging their reputations by speculating on their past flights serves no purpose.</p>
<p>The pilots have the right to appeal the decision, and they also have the opportunity to apply for a reinstatement in a year’s time. It’s not a definitive revocation for life.</p>
<p>snowball wrote: “Personally I wonder if they weren’t sleeping, then they were doing something else that would be very embarrassing; like sleeping together, but not sleeping! Something very strange went on in that cockpit.”</p>
<p>“Cockpit” takes on an entirely new meaning… ;)</p>
<p>I think I need to clear up some misconceptions. I’ve been an airline pilot for a really long time. I completely buy that they were on their laptops, I am convinced they are not hiding anything there. They would have been much better off if they had lied and said they fell asleep, they were fatigued due to the painful airline scheduling. I doubt they had internet connections, most of the NW airplanes are not even configured for that. Yes, the new scheduling program is very complex and I can see how someone could get completely engrossed in that. At the airline I fly for, people rarely open up their laptops, but I have heard of other NW pilots working on their laptops inflight. On a long flight, it can be very boring. We’re not supposed to read books, newspapers, or anything not flight related. Do you really think that doesn’t happen on 4 hour flights? Yes, it’s against the rules, but people need to stay awake somehow. It’s not like a surgeon who is opening people up and working on them every minute. It truly is hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. My airline regulations don’t even address laptop issues, this is a rather new development. If you were to see my book of rules, you would see the thousands upon thousands of rules we have. I’m sure we accidentally break numbers of them every time we fly. It is a lawyer’s heaven, made to protect the airline and the manufactor from all lawsuits-and call everything pilot error.</p>
<p>Have you ever been on your laptop working on something, and all of a sudden it is 1 hour later? How did that happen? People get distracted. It is common to lose contact with Air Traffic Control. Sometimes you don’t talk to controllers for a long time, they forget about you…then you start calling them, they can’t hear you and you’re scrambling for a good frequency. Now, I have never been distracted by anything, enough to fly past the airport, but I can see how it could happen and it’s not as grossly terrible as you might think. I have sworn off Sudoku, that is way too distracting. Actually, the airplane I fly, if you flew past your destination, the autopilot would disconnect and there would be plenty of bells and whistles in the cockpit. Apparently not this aircraft.</p>
<p>I’m not saying they shouldn’t be fired and that this is acceptable. I’m just explaining it and saying it’s not as horrific as people seem to think it is. Imagine if you were doing your job and got focused and distracted on something for too long of a period of time—nothing bad happened except a slight delay, and now you will be fired and the entire world knows your personal business. Yeah, these guys will probably lose their jobs, they were inappropriately distracted, but we don’t know the entire story. And I can tell you stories that are a heck of alot worse than this. Crude insinuations of what they were doing is really just silly.</p>