“I meant that I think they screwed themselves legally and professionally because they chose a story for which there is no excuse for a professional pilot.”
Well, call me a Phillistine (with 25k+ hrs), but perhaps the best thing they could have done was tell the truth. IMHO the laptop story is bogus. Back when laptops were “legal”, I never heard of a problem with them, and I used them a lot. Nah, it ain’t laptop use that got these guys in trouble. ATC? Possibly, but only peripherally. Not that ATC won’t try to hang you for their own mistakes. I can count on two hands the number of times they tried to violate us. They always got hung when the tapes were reviewed. ATC already knows what their level of culpability is, if any. In this case it may actually be publicized.
As to the crew....well, they screwed up. Since I was only an unwashed Boeing driver, I can only go by my own experience. If my rapidly failing neurons can be trusted, the Boeing makes all sorts of unpleasant noises when you reach a top of descent point and don’t descend. Understand that the “Eurotrash” may have very different ideas about how to handle this indiscretion, as well as what is to be done when you reach an end of route point (MSP), at cruise altitude and speed.
Suffice to say that a Boeing would tend to get “noisy” well before reaching MSP if it was still boring along at cruise altitude. Any A320/Boeing drivers (there are many), that can compare and contrast the reactions of the FMS and Airbus equivalent in an aircraft that has not been allowed to descend from a calculated Top Of Descent point?
It would be an interesting comparison, and in the case of the Airbus, quite applicable.
It would be nice if folks just told the truth. It would make things so much simpler for everyone.
I never flew the big iron, but I can imagine there is a bell, chime or horn for everything.
You sure are correct about telling the truth. I used to have salesmen that were always asking “What do I tell them” referencing late deliveries, etc.
My standard reply was always “You might as well tell them the truth, the truth will eventually come out anyway.”
To bad those guys don’t get it.
I flew light twins so I didn’t have the kind of bells, whistles, chimes and nagging cabin crews you had.
On any leg over 3 hours, my bladder was my bell, whistle and chime. I was looking for the descent point.
And referencing the lap tops, as you well know the term mult-tasking was invented for instrument flying. Anyone that can’t fly, scan, find that intersection on the chart, scan, change the freq, scan, change the power setting, scan...would never make it to the point that he would get a position flying the big iron.
Your are right. They are lying.