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I think your scope creep of FAR 91.3 and 91.11 into non-operational and non-safety airline business decisions is uncompelling, and in fact I see it as a risk to flight safety. The scope creep of these powers increases the risk of abusing that power, and when people are caught in the act of abusing power, it reduces trust. And that loss of trust can risk lives in situations where a very high degree of trust is needed. So I take the position that FAR 91.3 and 91.11 do not make the crew god emperors in all things. I apply those regulations contextually. And the context of the story of the week, that passenger was not in any way shape or form a safety risk to himself or anyone else, including the crew and therefore FARs simply do not apply at all. This was an airline business decision, it was strictly about money. I'm not going to deny a person who has the capacity to distinguish contexts from peacefully resisting a bullshit business request that relates to the airline's profits. You can't or don't want to distinguish contexts - fine for you. As for flight 163, is an interesting choice given your position. Basically that airline had not learned the lessons of the 1977 Tenerife accident, which is basically that the absolute authority of the PIC is bullshit. That whole archaic culture of what the captain says goes, he's always right, do not question, just do what you're told, is a dead end concept from a bygone era. Now, we have crew resource management which merges the idea of all crew having a say when it comes to bringing up concerns related to safety, and once they've had their say the PIC is the final authority rather than an absolute authority. There's a difference. Anyway, when everyone dies in an accident, it's hard to argue after the fact that the PIC was right, and everyone was right to just follow the orders. |
Not denying in the least BTW the lessons of Tenerife/CRM (and I brought up the Saudi 163 example precisely because it challenges PIC authority), just arguing that the devolution of authority should go as far as the crew, but not extend to pax.
As for distinguishing contexts, my argument is that an airplane is not the right place to have that discussion. Say I use my mobile phone, arguing that it is not actually safety relevant, and only a business decision by the airline because they want me to use their expensive credit card sat phone. Then when crew asks me to switch it off, I refuse, and when they ask me to disembark, I refuse, as it's a commercial issue, not safety or ops. It seems like a slippery slope.