Sloppy & Childish American Airlines Pilot Gets Aggressive

Though I probably couldn't find it, I recall an ATC recording a year or two ago of an AA pilot with similar difficulty remembering to repeat his callsign. In that case, his response was to say "American Airlines Flight Number xxxx" on every subsequent interaction.

Wonder if it's the same guy...

Total child. I have no doubt he's a senior pilot and probably very skilled - but that was totally uncalled for. It's not unreasonable to expect the runway ID to be repeated on final (visual) approach 😉

But I thought they were being paid outrageous sums of money for their "professionalism"? They'll all be gone in 25 years. AI will at least read back the callsign without any attitude.

Since this article is about correct phraseology, I will point out that UAL278 did not read back the runway assignment.

I don't have much respect for many pilots these days. Not well educated dudes get a license and act like they can do whatever they want. Especially booting off people from their airplane without even listening to what the pax say. Giving power to some people turns them into an awful person.

The full call sign and runway assignment readbacks are “relatively” new (last 20 years), but are a reasonable and critically necessary measure to ensure “correct surface/correct aircraft” happens. Yes, they require a few more words, but as a 40-year Captain for a major airline, I welcome the backup. Most professional pilots will agree with me.

Based on the pilot’s reaction, this is not the first nor the last time this sloppiness has happened, and I hope for everyone’s safety that American actually investigates and administers corrective action.

Aviation safety operates under the assumption that everyone is trying their hardest to be professional and follow SOP so that when inevitable human error occurs, it’s caught with our redundant safety backups. When there’s willful neglect of the most basic safety redundancies, in this case readbacks and callsigns, you’re 90% of the Swiss cheese towards an accident. All it takes is one tired ATC not realizing that AA misheard a runway because it was never read back for there to be a catastrophic accident

This is what the world is coming to. Ten year olds won't know any differently.

Absolutely abhorrent response. Yes this pilot was unprofessional and I agree that AA should look into what his deal is. But to say you don't have respect for not just pilots, but "uneducated" people is similar to how this pilot acted. Both of you think you're better than everyone else because of your "education". Get a grip.

Hi Chris,
I'm not sure why you are reveling in many people losing their jobs to AI. What this guy did was uncalled for. But to be happy about massive job loss? Also uncalled for. I guarantee you whenever AI takes the jobs of airline personel, most of the country will 1) follow quickly or 2) have already had their jobs taken.

The sooner airplanes can fly by themselves without any human assistance the better off we'd be. D

Sounds like an Ozzie expat that’s been here for awhile, almost lost the accent but not quite. From my flying with them they are extremely passive aggressive and highly opinionated….. however conversely they are sticklers for radio work, pedantic at procedure and highly professional … apparently the last three faded away but he still has the first two… bad combo

Something worth noting is that controllers aren't being pedantic just for fun, it's a requirement. Hearback/readback errors are drilled into trainee controllers practically from day one at the academy, because it's such an important safety component to ensure accuracy. Things like this are so easy for a facility to get dinged on for internal and external compliance verifications, so they become frequent topics in safety briefings that controllers receive. If a controller issues a control instruction and it's read back correctly but executed incorrectly, then it's a pilot deviation; if a controller issues a control instruction and it's read back incorrectly, then it's on the controller. Pilots and controllers are expected to operate with accuracy, and fortunately 99.5% of pilots and controllers understand that. The other 0.5% get the dad voice from me because they don't want to play by the same rules as everyone else. We all get paid a lot of money to do these jobs, because people trust us to do our jobs safely and correctly. For anyone (on either side of the mic) to give this sort of attitude is absolutely unprofessional and unnecessary, especially when he's so clearly being correctly called out for not adhering to standard phraseology. I've never had a reaction from a pilot like this, and frankly if I did, I would address it the exact same way as this controller. Pilots get two freebies from me before they get the dad voice, and that's exactly what happened here.

Just wondering: what is so special about runway 26? Why do they both (AA and UA) prefer runway 26 over the other two runways.
And besides: why is it called runway 26 while the others are called 25l and 25r? They all show in the same direction, don’t they?

This pilot was wrong. He even checked on the frequenzy wrong by omitting his altitude in his first call to the new controller (approach). Unless he shows that attitude with the controller when he calls on the phone, he won't get violated just told not to do it again.

(Retired airline Captain with over 40 years of aviation experience)

Firing offense

Landing on RWY 26 in Phoenix makes for a shorter taxi to the gate.

Well it is El Paso to Phoenix so it’s probably at the bottom of the food chain for American. He’s just being the bus driver that he is! And they wonder why we prefer to drive our Tesla instead of being with them?

Actually, they don’t change. Their true selves come out.

So, do we hope that was the captain or the f/o?

How did you manage to turn this story into a proclomation of your Tesla ownership lol

Airports are allowed to name parallel runways a different 10 degree if they run out of L/R/C or don't want to use it all. And both UA and AA have a shorter taxi (and in UAs case maybe departure) to the north runway, 29, while airlines like Delta and SOuthwest have a shorter taxi to the south runways.

seems every week or so we have a post about AA FA's ... not being terribly friendly ... one recollection in the comments about a prior event much like this, and this. The anger extends to the cockpit ...

AA pilot was completely wrong, acting childish, until...

Controller: “Are you okay? You seem very hostile.”

COMPLETELY inappropriate. And childish.

Lives are at stake. Just let him land. File a report.

It's the Trump effect. A nation of maladjusted man childs. Everyone's a wise ass who has to show he can dump on anyone, anytime, anywhere just to work off their frustration. Civility and competence are out of fashion. Look at Musk, look at Boeing. What a sad country of career losers the US has become.

I must agree! For example, people who are so fixated with their illogical hatred for the man that they try to take any story - about any random thing - and make about their own serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The first controller sounded like a bit of an ass as well. Doesn't excuse the pilot's reaction, but it surely contributed to it.

Call it what you like, Trump is a symptom of a cultural malaise. Toxic white male entitlement syndrome. Obnoxious white men who think they can do and say anything and get way with it, even at the cost of peoples' lives: Jan 6, 737 Max....

I find it hard to imagine this incident happening in any other country.

And "illogical" is people who vote for a fraudster who tried to steal an election and incite a violent overthrow of the constitution. USA!

Its amazing that you can tell a person's skin color from the sound of their voice. That's considered linguistic profiling, which under the EEOC is considered racist and illegal. Judging someone on the sound of their speech is also a microaggression. Way to be a tolerant liberal!

Pot, kettle calling.

You don't need to identify their voice to know he's white, that's why it's called white privilege. A non-white person would never dare because, they couldn't get away with it. A white man can face 91 criminal charges and still run for president. If he was black, they'd have thrown the key away. But hey, don't let that stop you playing the victim, white boy. Rights for whites!

I think you are getting upset all your entitlement programs are going bye bye. Affirmative action last year being overturned by Supreme Court and now many of the DEI handouts are slowly going away since they are at their core discrimatory. Going to have to stand on your own two feet here soon.

If you are 40yo white male and decided to become a pilot. You are likely a dumb ass. A lucky one though :-).

These arrogant clowns are making at least a quarter of a million dollars per year. Yes, automation can absolutely take that job.

But people like you have no problem with corporate welfare (entitlement), such as companies avoiding taxes by establishing a presence in foreign countries.

The pilot should be fined and demoted.

First of all I'm white, so it's not "my entitlement programs" but giving people opportunities who are excluded by institutional prejudice and racism, of which your ignorant post is a good example. The same thing that keeps millions more blacks in jail or victims of police violence.

I see that even Boeing's disaster is being blamed on "DEI" and affirmative action when there isn't a black person in sight on the Boeing board. A company that's been driven into the ground by a succession of entitled white CEOs from the Neutron Jack school of GE management and financial engineering, putting profit before people's lives: Stonecipher, McNerny, Macallister, Calhoun. All benfeciaries of white entitlement programs. Jack Welch the destroyer of corporate America who ended his days spouting anti-Obama conspiracy theories and supporting Donald Trump, another failed CEO and beneficiary of infinite largesse to failed entitled, white men. Toxic white masculinity kills and this incident was another near miss and all you can talk about is DEI!

Can I suggest you set up a collection for all those poor, misunderstood, destitute fake white billionaires who'e pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, but just don't get the credit and respect they deserve... Trump, Ackman, Musk...you know their names.

Sounds like an obnoxious Aussie p****.

What happens after incidents like this? Are they reported to the FAA? To their supervisors? To anyone?

I'm known as a petty guy, and I do not mind at all. Generally easy to get along with untill you make me upset. If I was this controller, a quick call into the FAA with the pilots info just to inform them of possible cognitive decline, erratic mental confusion and comprehension difficulties. Pretty sure that would ground him for a while so it could be fully investigated, with my intention of overall safety. And yes, give me attitude like that for your mistake and I would do this in a heartbeat!

The pilot had the concord flight number in his head, and remission losses. It's completely scary sometimes. No lie