An Aer Lingus pilot, who didn\u2019t report a failure to link up with a navigation beacon on approach to Dublin Airport, has said his co-pilot\u2019s repeated use of the word \u201capologies\u201d to air traffic control was just his \u201cmanners\u201d as a \u201cwell-educated, posh Belvedere boy\u201d. <\/p>\n
Aer Lingus denies statutory complaints brought by the pilot, 53-year-old Declan McCabe, under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, and the Payment of Wages Act 1997 at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC). <\/p>\n
Shortly before 1pm on June 8th, 2023, Capt McCabe was in flying in command of an Airbus A321neo passenger jet, call sign Shamrock Three Victor Charlie, which failed to acquire the radio beacon for the instrument landing system (ILS) for Dublin Airport\u2019s north runway on its approach. <\/p>\n
Mr McCabe was demoted from captain to first officer after airline management concluded that he had failed to submit a timely air safety report and gave \u201cinaccurate information\u201d to the national air traffic control authority. Mr McCabe denies these findings and says these were the result of a \u201cpredetermined\u201d process aiming to penalise him. <\/p>\n
Mr McCabe\u2019s position is that the question of whether or not to file a safety report on the issue was a judgment call for him as the commander of the aircraft.<\/p>\n
Counsel for the complainant David Byrnes BL, instructed by Setanta Solicitors in the matter, said in a legal submission that the June 8th, 2023, incident was \u201ca non-event\u201d to the extent that the final transmission from Air Traffic Control to the jet was \u201cno worries\u201d.<\/p>\n
Aer Lingus\u2019s barrister, Tom Mallon BL, appearing instructed by Arthur Cox, quoted an agreed transcript to Mr McCabe in his cross-examination today and asked why the first officer had used the word \u201cre-establish\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d have to ask the first officer,\u201d Mr McCabe said. <\/p>\n
When the controller asked for confirmation the crew were headed for the north runway, the first officer replied: \u201cAffirm 10-L, stand by,\u201d Mr Mallon quoted. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would he use the phrase \u2018stand by\u2019?\u201d counsel asked. Mr McCabe again said it was a question for the first officer. <\/p>\n
The controller\u2019s next words were \u201cTurn left 070 to lock on if you continue that track,\u201d Mr Mallon said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe obviously can see we\u2019re in a turn at that stage. He\u2019s confirming the heading … but we\u2019re already on that heading,\u201d Mr McCabe said. <\/p>\n
The first officer said next \u201capologies, correcting track now, 070\u201d, Mr Mallon said. \u201cAny comment?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr McCabe said the language used over the radio could be \u201cinformal\u201d. \u201cWe say \u2018thank you\u2019, \u2018apologies\u2019, \u2018good day\u2019, \u2018good night\u2019,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Mr Mallon suggested the first officer was \u201capologising in some fashion to air traffic control\u201d and that \u201ccorrecting track\u201d might \u201cimply it was not correct\u201d. Mr McCabe said he couldn\u2019t speak for the other pilot, but that the aircraft was \u201con a new track\u201d. <\/p>\n
A later transmission replying to the controller was: \u201cAffirm, happy to continue descent to 2,000 feet, apologies\u201d. Mr Mallon again asked about the word \u201capologies\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI hope you get to meet [the first officer]. He\u2019s a well-educated, posh, Belvedere boy. He has a lot of manners. When you get to meet him, you will see that,\u201d Mr McCabe said. <\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, I was educated in another northside school that was not Belvedere,\u201d Mr Mallon said. <\/p>\n
The case has been adjourned by adjudicator John Harraghy to the new year. <\/p>\n
Mr Byrnes said at the end of Friday\u2019s hearing there seemed to be \u201cno indication\u201d that Captain Wynne was \u201ccoming to join this party\u201d. <\/p>\n
Mr Mallon said: \u201cHe won\u2019t be. My case is he has nothing to do with this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Aer Lingus pilot, who didn\u2019t report a failure to link up with a navigation beacon on approach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[601,72,11900,61,60,6465],"class_list":["post-188464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-aer-lingus","tag-business","tag-dublin-airport","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-workplace-relations-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}