Anything that erodes that authority is not good for customer, employee or even good business. This ruling no matter how it turns out presents a clear and present danger.
This is my concern in all this. The crews deal with potential disasters everyday, all airlines, not just us. The erosion of safety levels we are seeing forced by mgmt. reminds me of a place I worked in my youth..not a good place. In the company eyes any safety decision that is made constitutes a "slow down" or "job action". The airline records are littered with choices made that ended badly, but sadly there is no way to track the choices made that were correct, since there is no bad outcome to make the papers.
Some that come to mind:
MD-80 in Littlerock, bad PIC call to continue approach but if nothing bad had come of it nobody would know about it.
DC-9 in CLT, another bad PIC call that would never be known about if the bad ending had not happened.
The interesting part about these two is the term "Bad PIC call" which in reality was not a bad call, just a "risk management" error coupled with just the right circumstances to end badly. In the DC-9 one all the other A/C ahead made it no problem then one didn't. In our current enviroment what do you suppose the mgmt. position would be if that 9 had diverted to another airport? A couple weeks ago I heard one of the guys break out of the holding for CLT and head to his ALT. T-storms everywhere, deviating, having to change holding sites due to weather moving into the hold areas etc. Everybody was watching fuel and I have no idea what his was like but he was the only one to divert.(that I heard). I would not be surprised at all if he received a CP call about that and hasseled about his divert choice. Was his choice the correct one? Well we will never know since he felt that circumstances warrented a divert for fuel and there was nothing to
report" in the papers.
Was Capt. Wells refusal the correct one? All I can say is that I would have done the same thing. I have never flown the 330 and do not pretend to know its systems unlike many on here that have never flown it but are quick to bash her choice. I do however have extensive experience crossing oceans, both the pacific and atlantic in a previous life and have flown to every continent except Antartica. If I had an aircraft with electrical issues and a CP on the phone with me not addressing my concerns but rather pounding on me with "Are you refusing to fly" I can tell you 100% that I would not have gone either.
On the other hand if I had that same CP working with me to find a way to alleviate the maint issues I would be much more receptive to finding a solution to the problem that satisfied safety concerns and got the flight out. I have never and will never go "feet wet" in an aircraft that I am not 100% confident in. Right or Wrong I support any Captain that reacts the same way. They are the ones there at that moment in time having to make the decision based on experience and risk management.
Now lets look at another scenario.......What would mgmt. and the media be saying about her had that A/C started the crossing and didn't make it to the other side and it came to light that she had serious concerns about its condition and took it anyway?
Every single one of us that has ever sat in the left seat has had to make decisions like this, pick one of your choices that you made over the years and ask yourself "what if" in the current "Are you refusing to fly?" environment.
