I’m not sure what’s more ridiculous — that pilots did this, or that they decided to share a picture of it online.
In this post:
SpiceJet pilots place drink on flight controls
This incident involves a March 8 SpiceJet flight from Delhi to Guwahati. What happened? Well, one of the pilots shared a picture on social media of the duo celebrating Holi by enjoying gujhiyas, which are traditional North Indian desserts made for festivals.
The plane was cruising at 37,000 feet at a speed of over 600mph, and the photo went viral… but not in a good way. In addition to the tasty sweets, the picture also showed a paper cup with either coffee or tea simply resting on the flight controls, which is a huge no-no. If either pilot bumps the drink or there’s a bit of turbulence, it could easily spill onto the throttle, fuel levers, and engine fire control switches. Among other things, this could trigger a short circuit, leading to a fire warning.
There are strict rules about where pilots can place drinks in the cockpit, and also whether they need to be covered. Suffice it to say that the pilots weren’t following the company’s policies.
SpiceJet pilots suspended pending investigation
Following this photo going viral, India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation has asked the airline to identify the crew members and take action against them. As a result, the pilots have been suspended pending an investigation.
Here’s how a SpiceJet spokesperson describes this decision:
“Both pilots have been off rostered pending an inquiry. SpiceJet has a strict policy for consumption of food inside the cockpit which is adhered by all flight crew. Appropriate disciplinary action will be taken upon completion of the investigation.
Lol, I love that the statement about pilots not adhering to the policies claims that the policy “is adhered by all flight crew.” Obviously it isn’t, or there wouldn’t be a need for a statement!
This is hardly the worst thing that a pilot has ever done, but it also shows incredibly poor judgment:
- Why would you place a drink on the flight controls, rather than in the standard cup holders in the cockpit? Was it just placed there for a photo?
- If so, how did the pilots think that taking a photo like this, let alone sharing it on social media, was a smart move, given that it’s a violation of company policy?
- It’s bad enough if one pilot thought this were a good idea, but did the other pilot not question their colleague?
I’m starting to understand why airlines are increasingly having policies against employees posting pictures on social media while they’re performing their job duties. Because if this is how a captain is occupying their time during a flight, well…
Bottom line
A SpiceJet captain posted a picture to social media while enjoying a festive snack at 37,000 feet. This picture also showed a coffee cup on the flight controls, which is not where that should ever go. This has caused both pilots to be suspended, pending an investigation.
What do you make of this SpiceJet pilot incident?
Seriously, one of their female pilots is reported to be making a mil a year from a failing airline and you think it's donuts being eaten in the Cock Pit??? Or a hot liquid container is open? There is a hot liquid container opened alright! What's is under that huge napkin in his lap! What is being hidden? Is that a pilot sitting there or is the pilot eating in the cock pit? Does anyone...
Seriously, one of their female pilots is reported to be making a mil a year from a failing airline and you think it's donuts being eaten in the Cock Pit??? Or a hot liquid container is open? There is a hot liquid container opened alright! What's is under that huge napkin in his lap! What is being hidden? Is that a pilot sitting there or is the pilot eating in the cock pit? Does anyone else have a clue?? I do. Its a metaphor for what is happening in the cocks pit. I want Monika's job.. where do I apply? For a mil a year I will eat in the cockpit as long as I get to pick who is eating and what I can eat... Just saying -what job title do I look for?
I showed this picture to my husband, who is a pilot, he said that this was a criminally bad thing to do.
Oh my.. I thought the pilots were eating in the Cock Pit.
I'm fairly certain the cock pit they were eating in can't be seen in this picture. Just saying
That official comment about 'which all our staff adheres to' is so typically indian lol
Why is no one admitting that pilots in the United States eat and drink in the flight deck next to the controls all the time, every day, with very few historical incidents. We are supposed to use lids if the coffee cups nowadays, but that was a new thing just a few years ago. We always take our meals and coffee in the flight deck. I guess I’m fortunate to work for a US carrier and not for a European or Indian carrier with facade-style safety.
It is social media. Possibly a picture taken before pushback where engine controls ( with engines off ) were placed in a specific position to support the coffee for the picture, then later posted as if they were flying at a the time. Being in aviation maintenance myself I cringed when I first saw the pic, knowing what issues could arrive if that coffee had been knocked over accidentally even with the aircraft safe on the ground. Definitely not a smart choice.
This is worse than it looks, cup (as someone already mentioned) is placed directly on the fuel cutoff levers. They were asking for a different kind of problem!
So should we just accept that the comment sections have become AI spambots like YinDaoYan spamming each other, or is Ben going to actually deal with this? It's ridiculous
I don’t know of any other aviation & travel blog that tolerates the numerous trolling/spamming that goes on at OMAAT, any newcomers will wonder what the heck is going on here, it’s not very friendly at the moment that’s for sure.
“AI spambot” is a term that a low IQ person thinks sounds smart
It's not even a good troll. Trolling can certainly be an art form, but YuDingDong is just boring.
I was curious - does anyone know if spilling liquids anywhere on the flight controls of a modern passenger plane actually does cause a mechanical or electrical problem?
Very much so. Airbus even decided to redesign the A350's cockpit systems after TWO incidents where spilled coffee caused loss of engine control!
https://www.businessinsider.com/airbus-a350-coffee-spill-engine-shutdown-redesign-2020-9
Thank you
Liquids and electronics don't mix. My friend bought two bags of tropical fish and put them in the back seat of his newer S550 MBZ. One of the bags broke and the water seeped through the seat to the electronics below. The car wouldn't start and the damage was in the thousands. Works the same with coffee in the cockpit.
That food looks like dogshit
Your mother had the same reaction the first time you popped out of her womb.
Wow let's keep the comments civil and on-topic please
That's pretty rich coming from you. The last 24 hours have seen you post the mist disturbed, and frankly demented, comments I have ever seen in my years of reading this blog.
'Diamond' or not, your behaviour has been nothing less than appalling. You should have a long think about your conduct, and it's effect on Ben and the visitors who frequent his blog.
Holy sh*t. I've been reading this blog for more than a decade and I've never seen someone take this anonymous internet comment section more seriously than you Pete. Get a fu*king life.
You're telling me to "have a long think" (last time someone told me that was my 1st grade teacher who made only US$30,000 a year)
and you don't know the difference between its/it's
so maybe you are f**king stupid and never graduated from grade school?
It sounds like it increases comment engagement which improves revenue which is how this blog is sustained, so maybe Pete you should GFY?
That's go F*** yourself.
You just told someone to keep remarks civil,then said this?
Walk the walk or STFU.
There was a film from 1964 "Fate is the hunter" with Glenn Ford and Suzanne Pleshette, where a crash is caused EXACTLY by this. It was not a very good one and the funniest part was looking at the plane which looked like nothing ever seen, something like the child of a Comet and a small rocket.
I just checked on Wikipedia, and there is a question: "Is the film based on a true story?"....
There was a film from 1964 "Fate is the hunter" with Glenn Ford and Suzanne Pleshette, where a crash is caused EXACTLY by this. It was not a very good one and the funniest part was looking at the plane which looked like nothing ever seen, something like the child of a Comet and a small rocket.
I just checked on Wikipedia, and there is a question: "Is the film based on a true story?". The answer is NO, but it may be the first time a real potential catastrophy is based on a scenario from 60 years ago (Although they say that the Titanic disaster was minutely described in a book from ....1895. The Titanic sank in 1912).
I love that film.
I guess these pilots are way too young to have seen the 1964 Glen Ford movie, Fate Is the Hunter, which is about a fatal airplane crash cause by spilled coffee over the controls in the cockpit.
I guess these stupid pilots don't follow guidelines or watch programs such as Air Crash Investigation. They would have thought they have done something very cute and clever and how hip they are posting such pics to social media.
And you placed it on engine cutoff lever.... What a genious.
Read Fate is the Hunter by Ernest Gann.
Hello Ben, please listen to your loyal readers who are demanding YinDaoYang to be banned from this website - he is destroying the comments section. Thank you
Please go to hell
Ban yourself
You are such a loyal reader you have not even registered for an account
He brings nothing to the conversation. I agree and thank you.
I disagree on both counts. You’re a nurse who is stupid and doesn’t know anything. Suck a pen fifteen, please.
Banning things you don’t like is cowardice. Neither ban nor feed the trolls. Let them exhaust themselves into obscurity with the lack of reciprocation, and if that doesn’t work, view them as a lowly and inherent element of the ecosystem - something akin to a gnat, for example.
Jen, your first sentence is spot on. The rest of your post has no relevance. If you think I’m more lowly than you or anybody in your social circle, you’re wrong and laughably so.
I think Yin might be off his meds today. I’ve noticed smart posts in the past, and no clue what might be affecting things today. I wonder if it’s even him/her.
Regardless, best for everyone to just move on from watching the car wreck.
It's a spambot AI.
I think he is actually pretty funny. I'd like to see Ben let YinDaoYan be a guest editor on this site.
@ Marko -- It has been taken care of. Thanks!
Penis
They need to be fired and banned from flying. Yes, perhaps its a one-off?. Just like a one-off crash based upon such carelessness.
You need to educate yourself on your racist biases. White people are very quick to call for firing and banning of non-white employees.
To me the other serious issue is both pilots eating the same food item. First, it’s almost universal that pilots do not have the same meal entree in case of food poisoning (as remote a possibility that may be) so one pilot will still be able to fly the plane. Second, the food item shown was likely purchased or made outside the flight kitchen so its safety would be unknown and thus could pose the...
To me the other serious issue is both pilots eating the same food item. First, it’s almost universal that pilots do not have the same meal entree in case of food poisoning (as remote a possibility that may be) so one pilot will still be able to fly the plane. Second, the food item shown was likely purchased or made outside the flight kitchen so its safety would be unknown and thus could pose the poisoning threat to both pilots. Hey, this was the theme of “Flight into Danger” a 50s classic movie where both pilots eat the same entree and come down with food poisoning, are out of commission thus threatening the safety of the flight and all aboard.
Food poisoning takes days to manifest.
NO it DOES not ! you idiot. It take take as little time as 30 minutes. Not only am I an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (and former Flight Attendant) BUT I, like many, have been made ill by food
You worthless life form. Nurses are wannabe docs. Get more food positioning and die!
This is a total overreaction. Its a 737 - its not like anything EVER goes wrong with them.
Get a brain Moran, haha!
Another example of human error.
You will never see any stupid situation like this in a fully automated flight.
Time to remove human (error) from the equation.
Too bad full automation requires AGI which is impossible.
It's flying a plane not a thinking chat bot, you don't need AI.
Just like autonomous cars, you just need scripts and rules. The less thinking the better.
I'm not ready to turn my life over to robots.
Also, don't pilots have to have different meals in case they get sick from food poisoning? I see that both are eating the same pastry....hmmm
You've been watching too much Airplane!
Wow... Aren't those the fuel cut-off levers?! That seems like a really bad place to sit... well, anything.
Also, what's with the asymmetric thrust lever positions?
The throttles are positioned so that both engines are producing the same amount of thrust. The throttles are periodically trimmed so that they’re both in the same position when producing the same thrust. But over time they get slowly out of trim and you need to adjust one or the other. I remember on the 747 where the throttles hadn’t been trimmed in awhile and they were all over the place. But the engines just purred along producing identical thrust.
Bad judgment in multiple ways leaves one to wonder how low the standards must be that allowed these pilots to get licensed.
You think it was good judgment of you to spend your years in retirement posting so much on OMAAT that you get Diamond status? (I don't know a single Donna under age 65.)
Frickin idiots.
Both actions, the flagrant disregard of the rules and posting their stupidity for the world to see, show a complete lack of common sense.
If you’re a white man “Todd” you’ve just called people of color “idiots.” Go to hell you racist.
Your trolling is boring. Go somewhere else please.
I'm talking about YinDaoYan, to be clear
You will not be telling me what to do, you understand? Go to hell please. Or just back to Calgary, close enough.
If you're going to troll, you can't be so sensitive. Bye.
He is right though. I've been to Calgary and it IS a fucking shithole.
@Ben, between this post and a few others lately, it seems you have someone giving you "inside information" on the in's and out's of the way pilots/cockpits operate. This is different from normal posts. If you have someone that is giving guidance on some of these issues, I think that is great. It allows you to present a more rounded article and not have a ton of misinformation or speculation in it. That said, did...
@Ben, between this post and a few others lately, it seems you have someone giving you "inside information" on the in's and out's of the way pilots/cockpits operate. This is different from normal posts. If you have someone that is giving guidance on some of these issues, I think that is great. It allows you to present a more rounded article and not have a ton of misinformation or speculation in it. That said, did I miss where you said this is the case? If you truly have all of this knowledge (not doubting that btw), great. I just think it would give more credence to some of the information if it was stated how you came about the information. For instance, how did/would you know that if the drink was spilled, it could lead to a fire warning? I suppose that is a rational next step, but seems to have more insight than usual. Same with knowing there are specific policies on where drinks can be set and that they have to be covered. Again, not a critique, I just noticed the difference.
That might well be the case. If so, great! Some other bloggers have been known to repackage heresay from anet, pprune, and flyertalk, and publish it as fact. So if there’s an actual source in the cockpit that’s helpful.
And how do you know that turbulence might cause the drink to spill? Do you also have a physicist passing you secret knowledge?
I predict the pilots will argue that they had the coffee in a cup holder, covered, but briefly opened it and moved it to the flight controls to take a better picture.
Not that this makes it OK. Posting to social media a pic of yourself violating a rule strongly suggests that you don't know what the rules are, and/or don't care.
@snic - DGCA regulations also prohibit photography by any person while serving as flight crew on board an aircraft. That argument won't get them far.
I understand the original show cause notice from DGCA accused the pilots of consuming tea and samosas and asked for an explanation. The response supposedly was that it was actually coffee and gujiyas. IF that is true (big IF) and the pilots actually responded that flippantly to compound their initial judgement issues, they deserve to have the book thrown at them by the regulator.