The Wall Street Journal reports on how United Airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are investigating how a passenger gained access to the cockpit of a flight at cruising altitude, in violation of the company’s policy, as well as FAA regulations. Thanks to @xJonNYC for flagging this.
Man takes video in captain’s seat on United MLB charter flight
This incident happened on Wednesday, April 10, 2024, and involves a United Airlines Boeing 757 that was flying a Major League Baseball (MLB) charter flight for the Colorado Rockies. The plane was operating the 1,315-mile flight from Denver (DEN) to Toronto (YYZ).
During the journey, a person traveling with the team took a video from the captain’s seat while the aircraft was reportedly at cruising altitude, sitting next to the first officer. You can hear the engine noise and see the flight instruments, including that the jet is at 35,000 feet. You can also see the cockpit door open, with people walking in and out.
The video had been posted to social media and was then removed. You can find a copy of the video below.
The person pictured in this video appears to be Hensley Meulens, who is a hitting coach for the team. When he posted the video to Instagram, he captioned it as follows:
“Had some fun in the cockpit on our flight from Denver to Toronto. Thanks to the captain and the first officer of our United charter that allowed me this great experience.”
A United spokesperson confirms that the company is aware of this, and is taking action:
“We’re deeply disturbed by what we see in that video, which appears to show an unauthorized person in the flight deck at cruising altitude while the autopilot was engaged. As a clear violation of our safety and operational policies, we’ve reported the incident to the FAA and have withheld the pilots from service while we conduct an investigation.”
What were these United pilots thinking?!?
United Airlines has had a series of safety incidents in recent weeks, with the situation getting so bad that the FAA is stepping up oversight of the airline, and this is even limiting United’s growth. Suffice it to say that United should be really focused on safety, as everything happening at the airline is under a microscope.
There are a couple of main issues here. For one, it’s a violation of both United’s policy and of FAA regulations for unauthorized people to access the cockpit while inflight, even if it’s a charter flight. Rules require that charter flights be treated the same as regularly scheduled flights for these purposes.
The reality is that stuff can go wrong in situations like this. Heck, several weeks ago, a LATAM Boeing 787 rapidly descended while flying over the South Pacific, after a flight attendant reportedly accidentally hit a switch on the pilot’s seat, leading a motorized feature to push the pilot into the controls, and then push the plane’s nose down. And let’s not even talk about Aeroflot flight 593, which crashed after a pilot’s child was allowed in the cockpit.
As you can see in the video, the pilots seemed to be aware of what was going on, as the first officer is sitting next to this guy the entire time, and doesn’t even ask him to leave. If this is as it appears, the much bigger issue here is the horrible judgment this shows on the part of the pilots:
- It’s bad enough to blatantly violate company and FAA policies under normal circumstances
- It gets even worse when you consider that the person was filmed violating the rules and then posted it online, which is just mind-numbingly dumb
- It gets even worse than that when you consider the scrutiny that United is currently under, and that everyone should be on their best behavior at the airline
This certainly doesn’t instill confidence in the professionalism of the pilots involved.
Bottom line
During a recent MLB charter flight, a passenger reportedly managed to access the cockpit of a United Boeing 757 while inflight, and even filmed a video doing so. This is a clear violation of both United’s policy and FAA regulations, and this is now being investigated. I’m curious to see what comes of this.
What do you make of this strange United incident?
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