[jwparkerjr]

You make some valid points. Points well taken! I think in the end I would ask have you ever heard of the FAA yanking a pilot's ticket this quickly? Without even a hearing, putting the onus directly on them if they choose to appeal the move. I have been a licensed pilot since I was 15 years old, well over 50 years now, and I love aviation more than anything else in the world. I follow developments in the field pretty closely. I have never seen the FAA move this quickly, especially against high-time, ATP rated pilots.

Whatever it turns out to be, it's going to be very interesting!

As I pointed out in an earlier post, in this post 9-11 world the only thing that kept this from being a really scary story was the fact the transponder was not turned off and it continued to respond normally. Nearly every hijack scenario includes turning the transponder off to make it more difficult to track the plane by not having any of the info usually provided.

My concern would have been they had fallen prey to the same thing that got the golfer and his plane and crew several years ago. No indication of any problem until they failed to contact ATC and didn't make a turn that they were expected to make. Turns out they were all dead. And the only hint of trouble was the lack of radio contact and not following their flight plan. Both situations were in play here.

Great discussion. Thanks for the time and effort to go back and forth!

[DoughtyOne]

I think your and other people’s concerns and arguments were valid too. While I do play the contrarian, I am by no means exonerating this crew. Thanks to you too, for the nice discussion.

Something went amiss here, and it is important that it not happen again.

Take care.