{"id":626520,"date":"2026-09-16T14:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T14:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/626520\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T14:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T14:58:14","slug":"pilot-escorted-out-of-aer-lingus-hq-by-gardai-says-he-felt-like-a-criminal-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/626520\/","title":{"rendered":"Pilot \u2018escorted out\u2019 of Aer Lingus HQ by garda\u00ed says he felt like a \u2018criminal\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A sacked pilot has said he felt \u201clike a criminal\u201d when garda\u00ed escorted him out of Aer Lingus\u2019s headquarters <\/a>after he vowed go on hunger strike, accusing the airline of failing to act on alleged fume leaks into the cabins of its jets. <\/p>\n

The pilot, former Airbus A320 Captain Tom O\u2019Riordan, was continuing his primary evidence to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC)<\/a> in his whistleblower penalisation action against Aer Lingus Ltd on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Aer Lingus strongly denies that any crew or passengers have been put at risk and says it dealt with O\u2019Riordan and his concerns properly.<\/p>\n

The pilot was sacked in 2024 after 14 months off sick after he said he was \u201cpoisoned\u201d by oil contaminating the cabin air aboard an Airbus A320 he was flying empty to Dublin on 5th June, 2023, having twice reported odours or fumes in the aircraft the day before. <\/p>\n

On 14th February, 2024, garda\u00ed were called to Shamrock House, Aer Lingus\u2019s headquarters at Dublin Airport, after O\u2019Riordan made demands during a grievance process meeting two managers, Seamus Cooke and Carmel Byrne. <\/p>\n

Cooke, the former base captain in Cork, and Byrne, a human resources (HR) legal case manager with the airline, were conducting a grievance process after O\u2019Riordan wrote to the Aer Lingus chief executive Lynn Embleton in November 2023 about his situation and concerns, the WRC has heard. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Riordan had told Embleton the airline had knowingly endangered his life by directing him to fly a jet he said was \u201cunfit and dangerous for service\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"\"From kitchen counter to supermarket shelves, the rise of Ballymaloe Foods<\/p>\n

\u201cI read a statement. I said that I was going to perform a sit-in and hunger strike at that time,\u201d O\u2019Riordan said of how he addressed the meeting. <\/p>\n

\u201cI believed there was a manifest danger to the health and safety of the general public and crew in Aer Lingus,\u201d O\u2019Riordan said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI realised from correspondence and documents I\u2019d uncovered that Aer Lingus was fully aware of what was going on with fumes on aircraft and were doing nothing about it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He wanted Aer Lingus to engage with staff on the matter, the tribunal has heard. <\/p>\n

Carmel Byrne, the airline\u2019s HR legal case manager, told the tribunal earlier this year that O\u2019Riordan also sought an undertaking at the meeting that the airline pay his salary until retirement at 65, with pension contributions, along with a \u201cgratuity in lieu of damages\u201d. <\/p>\n

It would have cost \u20ac3 million, she said. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Riordan said he was never told who in Aer Lingus sent for the garda\u00ed on the day. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was put to sit in a room on my own. Conor O\u2019Dwyer came to the room and said that if I didn\u2019t leave, I would be subject to mental health removal,\u201d O\u2019Riordan said, referring to a senior managing pilot at the airline. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Riordan said he walked out a corridor through the lobby to the door with two uniformed garda\u00ed, \u201cone either side of me\u201d, accompanied by Mark Tighe, the ex-president of pilots\u2019 union IALPA. <\/p>\n

\u201cWould people have seen you being escorted out?\u201d his barrister, David Byrnes, asked. <\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d O\u2019Riordan said. <\/p>\n

\u201cHow did that make you feel?\u201d counsel said. <\/p>\n

\u201cLike a criminal,\u201d O\u2019Riordan said. <\/p>\n

Twelve days later, O\u2019Riordan said, he returned to Shamrock House and mounted an \u201cawareness march\u201d on the street outside, in uniform and holding a placard.<\/p>\n

In March, 2024, he started posting on social media about his campaign under the username \u2018ToxicAer\u2019, the WRC heard. <\/p>\n

He was dismissed that August when a senior manager, Captain Colm O\u2019Dwyer, concluded in a disciplinary process that O\u2019Riordan set out to \u201cdamage\u201d his colleagues and committed serious gross misconduct with the social media posts.<\/p>\n

Aer Lingus\u2019s barrister, Tom Mallon, has argued the posts cannot be shielded by whistleblower law. <\/p>\n

He said at the opening of the case two years ago that it was \u201cabsolutely disputed, unreservedly disputed, that Captain O\u2019Riordan or anybody else, and in particular passengers, were put at any risk\u201d.<\/p>\n

The hearings are due to resume on Wednesday afternoon. <\/p>\n

The WRC heard on Tuesday that in a November 2023 email to the airline\u2019s CEO Lynne Embleton, Mr O\u2019Riordan wrote: \u201cAer Lingus knowingly endangered my life and left me with life-altering injuries that leave me unfit to work.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI was instructed to operate an aircraft from London to Dublin on 5th June, 2023, which was unfit and dangerous for service,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

He then proceeded to take issue with his salary being cut \u201cbecause of operating an aircraft with oil in the engines\/air conditioning from which I was poisoned\u201d. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Riordan said he \u201ccouldn\u2019t have any trust or confidence\u201d in Aer Lingus when he was meeting Byrne and Cooke in February, 2024. <\/p>\n

His evidence was that the grievance process was limited in scope, with any consideration of the 5th June 2023 flight itself ruled out on the basis that it was investigated as an air safety matter. <\/p>\n

He said a \u201cnarrative\u201d also emerged in the course of the grievance process that he had been \u201cnoncompliant\u201d by not using Aer Lingus\u2019s internal system to make an air safety report about the flight. <\/p>\n

His barrister said in a legal submission that the duty to make the report fell to the first officer while O\u2019Riordan was indisposed. <\/p>\n

However, the grievance outcome delivered on 26th May that year included a finding that O\u2019Riordan \u201cdid not provide information on what happened on 5th June, 2023, as requested\u201d, Byrnes noted. <\/p>\n

Counsel said the airline\u2019s director of safety and security, Captain Conor Nolan, had earlier in the case accepted O\u2019Riordan was relieved of the duty to report in the circumstances. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Riordan said he felt he was being \u201charassed\u201d and placed \u201cunder duress\u201d by repeat contact from Captain Conor Barrett about making a safety report while in hospital. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t about my safety, my life, it was about an ASR (air safety report); [that] I was doing something wrong by not reporting,\u201d Mr O\u2019Riordan said in evidence. <\/p>\n

He said he met another Aer Lingus pilot, Declan McCabe during his picket outside Shamrock House. McCabe told him he had been subject to disciplinary action for failure to file an air safety report at the request of a manager, O\u2019Riordan said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI found out my fear was grounded,\u201d O\u2019Riordan said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sacked pilot has said he felt \u201clike a criminal\u201d when garda\u00ed escorted him out of Aer Lingus\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-626520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626520","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=626520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}