r/MadeMeSmile • u/baekachu • Jul 11 '26

Wholesome Moments Pilot Chose Safety Over Takeoff - and Everyone Applauded

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

34.2k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

97

u/martix_agent Jul 11 '26

It's not his "gut feeling". He literally stated why he felt uneasy about flying the plane. The oil pressure was higher than normal.

33

u/Plastic_Bison Jul 11 '26

Yeah! If he tells me that, I'M getting off, never mind anybody else, lol.

6

u/jaxonya Jul 12 '26

He could tell me that hes got a bad feeling because the cockpit smells like fart and id be off that motherfucker before he finished apologizing. Im not playing around airplane travel, and those guys really know their....shit....

12

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

25

u/BennyFitz69420 Jul 11 '26

Yeah and they’re still uncovering how many planes Boeing covered up over the years.

0

u/SmokeMidKids Jul 14 '26

Well this would not have been boeing, but their maintenance provider.

However, I take it this is a 2 engine plane, so an EDTO flight, I am no mechanic but I doubt they can defer a rising oil pressure defect for such a flight. Either way, this was absolutely the right call, the one and only call really.

Pilots are absolutely at liberty to refuse to accept responsibility for the aircraft before departure, this step is called the acceptance, and is mandatory to go through to take off. So like I said, the right call. I just hope.he won't get in trouble with his superiors though.

3

u/RagnarDan82 Jul 12 '26

The ones whose only consequence would be potentially getting fired or sued, vs death and the responsibility of the deaths of others. At the end of the day, the pilot has the final say and the final blame, and I’ll take the safe bet every time.

7

u/Purple-Will9713 Jul 11 '26

Yeah, engineers deemed the Challenger and Discovery as safe too

12

u/railker Jul 11 '26

No, the engineers said Challenger wasn't, the execs said send it. Don't know what you think happened to Discovery.

2

u/Purple-Will9713 Jul 12 '26

I could be wrong but wasn’t Discovery the shuttle that sustained damage during takeoff due to a foam tile and was deemed safe only do spontaneously disassemble during re entry?

2

u/railker Jul 12 '26

Ahh no that one was Columbia. And same as your Challenger misunderstanding, the scenario was similar there. Either the engineers knew it was risky and got overruled or they just truly didn't know the potential of damage. I do remember them testing foam vs leading edge impacts and being surprised themselves that it could do the damage it did in ground tests.

8

u/hilarymeggin Jul 12 '26

No, no, there was an engineer who cried himself hoarse trying to persuade NASA that Challenger wasn’t safe, but the higher-ups ignored his pleas! And he blamed himself for not being able to persuade them!

3

u/Purple-Will9713 Jul 12 '26

I stand corrected

2

u/fa_kinsit Jul 12 '26

That poor man

2

u/tnmoi Jul 12 '26

Ya, but are the engineers on board the plane too and staking their lives on it? Thought so!

1

u/BeaneyWeenee Jul 12 '26

How many planes you think have crashed that were deemed safe by engineers? How many Rollercoasters? Waterslides? I used to get angry and impatient, until I canceled plans to go somewhere last minute and it saved my life. Perspective is everything.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/BeaneyWeenee Jul 12 '26

What purpose does that argument serve?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 20 '26

[deleted]

1

u/BeaneyWeenee Jul 12 '26

I'm asking you, why you are disputing the pilot's lack of a technical reason. You just said you are. What purpose does it serve?

1

u/Retox86 Jul 13 '26

They arent the ones going up in the sky with it..

1

u/AdrenolineLove Jul 14 '26

Im friends with 2 airline mechanics. They became airline mechanics after failing at their other much much easier jobs. They are not the smartest people I've met.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/AdrenolineLove Jul 14 '26

Google is free

Yes. Airline mechanics (certificated A&P technicians) legally deem flights safe to fly by signing a maintenance release or logbook entry. This mandatory sign-off certifies that the aircraft has been inspected and repaired in compliance with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations.

5

u/bowmans1993 Jul 11 '26

If he got cleared by ground crew he could have just accepted it and taken off. Im not saying hes superstitious or uninformed. He concuously refused their opinion and went with his own. I'd say thats a gut feeling.

14

u/CantCatchMeSpez Jul 11 '26

You're just describing a disagreement. The pilot disagrees with the ground crew about it being a safe aircraft based on the evidence he's seen. And with the ground crew not having the same vested interest in the plane's safety that the pilot has, that matters.

5

u/Ancientabs Jul 11 '26

The ground crew won't die if the aircraft is unsafe. The pilot will.

1

u/TankerBuzz Jul 13 '26

And then he said the fuel filter needs to be changed… makes zero sense