Well folks, one thing that I think that many people don't understand, especially right-wing types, is that there is no such thing as
absolute.
-Listen, here's the other side of the coin. In 1999 I was fresh out of Captain's training on the Boeing 727's that my company flew around Europe in sub-service to DHL. I was working for a
non-union airline.
I was tasked one night with a nice assignment: one easy flight leg from Brussels Belgium down to Bergamo Italy, and then spend the day in the beautiful town in the foothills of the Italian alps. I rode out to the airplane with my crew, did a preflight, and took off for Italy.
Two weeks before this, I had flown this airplane and had made a report to maintenance because it was using slightly more than the maximum of one quart of oil per hour. I never heard what happened, but the plane was flying the next day I'm sure.
Well, there I was looking down on the snow-covered valleys of the Swiss Alps on a beautiful clear night with a full moon...when my flight engineer tapped me on the shoulder:
"Norm, we're loosing oil on the #3 engine. We took off with just over three gallons, and we're down to 1.5 gallons right now". This was just about an hour into the 90 minute flight. Suddenly, the mountains below started to look a LOT taller and uglier!
"Ok...keep me informed. We're 35 minutes out of Bergamo, my plan is to bring that one to idle thrust at one gallon so we have it still alive in case we have to go around". It hit 1.0 gallons about 15 minutes later, and I idled it into Bergamo, where we landed uneventfully just after sunrise. Just as we were pulling into the parking space, the Italian ground controller came on the frequency and said to us: "Eurotrans, be advised you had large amount of blue smoke after you landed". Great. Only NOW you tell me that my plane is on fire!
Anyway, as soon as we were parked and stairs were brought up to the plane, I ran down them and to the back of the airplane. It was amazing- there was oil pouring out of the engine, approximately like a garden hose at full blast! How it managed to hold its oil until I was safely past the Alps I'll never know. Well, I figured on staying in Bergamo for a day or two until they fixed the leak or changed the engine. Someone handed me a phone, and I called the company to inform them what was going on. I promptly wound up on a conference call with the Chief Pilot, the Director of Maintenance, and the Vice President of Operations. The plan that they had come up with:
They were going to fill the engine with oil and I was to ferry it back to Brussels for an engine change.
HELLO?
"I don't think so!" I said to them. And then they started threatening me. "Well, we really need the airplane in Brussels so we can perform the maintenance, and we need you to be a part of the team on this" so on and so forth, until finally, I heard "We might have to reconsider your employment with our firm if you can't work with us on this". Yeah right.
Uhmm...I value my life more than any job! Also, if the FAA had found out that I'd done that...I'd have possibly lost my pilot's license. A license that was earning me just about 6-figures per year!
They coerced and coerced, but in the end I wound up at the hotel. You see, they had another Captain who lived in the area [former Eastern Airlines scab...] who agreed to take the plane to Brussels. And of course, he lost all the oil and had to shut the engine down over Germany. And the FAA did find out about it and he received a letter of investigation as a result.
I'm certain that I'd have been fired if that guy hadn't been there to take the plane.
NOW....do you think that airlines with unionized pilots try that sort of thing with their pilots? I think not. They know that if they did, the pilot would simply call the FAA and there is not much the company could do about it. They can try to fire him, but the union will quickly get him his job back and back pay with it.
Think about this next time you put your children or family on a flight: do you want them to be riding on a plane flown by an airline that can fire the pilots if they refuse to fly a danerous airplane [and thus...stand by your anti-union attitude], or would you prefer them to ride with people who aren't afraid to walk away from something that is leaking oil all over the place? You decide.
The moral of my story: Dogmatism is never correct. Nothing is black and white, it is all shades of gray.
N