Fight or Flight

Belying the French reputation for civility and refinement, two Air France pilots have been suspended in the wake of an in-flight brawl that saw the pair square-off across the cockpit of an A320 during a June 2022 flight from Geneva to Paris.

The fisticuffs reportedly ensued after the first officer’s refusal to comply with instructions issued by the flight’s captain. Exercising command privilege, subject captain allegedly took hold of the first officer’s shirt-collar and slapped him a time or two—thereby earning his subordinate’s enmity and retaliation.

The dispute erupted shortly after takeoff and was broken up by cabin crew-members—one of whom remained in the cockpit throughout the flight for purpose of ensuring the combatants remained on their respective sides of the Airbus’s pedestal. The flight continued without incident and the aircraft landed safely in the city of lights.

News of the fight was made public by France’s air investigation agency, BEA, in an August 2022 report addressing a number of instances in which serious safety violations occurred on Air France flights.

Among the more egregious occurrences cited in the report was a 2020 incident in which the pilots of an Air France A330 enroute from the Congolese capital city of Brazzaville to Paris failed to shut down an engine afflicted with a fuel-leak. Instead of securing the engine and landing as soon as possible—per Air France published procedure—the aircrew rerouted the flight to Chad, where the aircraft landed safely. Nevertheless, the BEA warned sternly that the fuel-leak could have precipitated an engine fire.

The report referenced three similar cases between 2017 and 2022 in which Air France flight-crews acted on their own analysis of atypical situations instead of deferring to the airline’s safety protocols. One such instance involved a flight from New York’s JFK airport that suffered flight-control problems during its approach to landing in Paris.

In response to the BEA report, Air France has undertaken an internal safety audit, and pledged to follow the agency’s recommendations—which include strengthening training manual language addressing adherence to procedure. Seeking to highlight its excellent safety record, the airline contrasted the thousands of daily flights it operates with the four safety incidents mentioned in the BEA report.

Air France pilots unions—somewhat vexingly—echoed the airline’s assertions of a company-wide, safety-first culture while defending the non-standard actions of its pilots during abnormal and emergency situations.

C’est la vie …

FMI: www.airfrance.fr