On August 26, local time, the French media "La Tribune" reported an "unprecedented incident" within Air France, in which two Air France pilots fought in the cockpit during the flight. On August 28, an Air France spokesperson confirmed the incident, saying the two pilots involved had been ordered to fly by the company.
Screenshot of the Tribune report
The Tribune reported that the "air dispute" occurred in June, involving two pilots, the captain and co-pilot, who flew an Airbus A320 airliner from Geneva, Switzerland, to Paris, France.
Shortly after the plane took off, still in the climbing stage, the two pilots had a dispute, the co-pilot refused to carry out the captain's instructions, and the two directly broke out in the cockpit.
Regarding the process of the fight, the two have different opinions. One of the pilots said it was an "unintentional blow" that caused the two to move, while the other claimed he had been slapped. The two then grabbed each other by the collar and wrestled, and after the other crew members heard the movement, they hurried into the cockpit to stop it, and the matter quickly calmed down.
To prevent another clash between the two, one crew member remained in the cockpit for the rest of the flight, looking after the duo. The staff member also wrote an accident report afterwards and handed it to Air France.
The matter was confirmed by Air France, who said that "the incident ended quickly and did not affect the normal flight and safety of the aircraft", the fight between the two did not affect other parts of the flight, and the aircraft continued to fly and land safely.
The spokesman stressed Air France's commitment to safety and said the two pilots involved were immediately grounded after the fact and are currently awaiting management's decision on their "completely inappropriate behaviour".
It is worth mentioning that before the scandal was exposed, the French Air Accident Investigation Service (BEA) had just released a sternly worded report criticizing Air France pilots for forming a culture of non-compliance with safety regulations.
The report concludes: "A certain culture has developed among some Air France crew members that encourages a tendency to underestimate the contribution of strictly enforcing safety procedures." ”
The BEA said safety incidents involving Air France were "extremely limited", but in several recent investigations they found that air France crew failed to perform procedures "compliantly" and that the safety factor was lowered "without the crew being aware of it".
In its report, THE BEA highlighted an accident that occurred on December 31, 2020. At that time, a French Airliner A330 flew from Brazzaville (Congo) to Paris and detected a fuel leak at a cruising altitude, but the crew did not follow fuel leak safety procedures, cut off the engine power on the leaky side, and chose to land at the nearest airport.
The plane eventually landed safely in Chad, but BEA said it was just a fluke because the fuel leak was likely to cause the engine to catch fire.
In addition, the BEA mentioned three other similar cases in the report, all of which were caused by pilots not strictly following safety procedures and acting solely on their own judgment of the situation.
BEA publishes results of the investigation into the A330 fuel leak accident of air France Airlines BEA official Twitter screenshot
In response to bea's report, Air France said it would conduct a safety review of the entire company within a few months and promised to accept because of the BEA's recommendations, including providing pilots with tools to play back and analyze flight conditions, and introducing stricter training manuals requiring pilots to strictly follow safety procedures.
Air France also said its company had hundreds of flights a day, but the BEA report mentioned only four safety incidents. The Air France Pilots' Union said safety was paramount to all pilots and that they would defend their actions in an emergency.
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