When I heard the clip my first thought was "When did VATSIM get the contract for the real world JFK tower?"
OK, Dan -- where would you draw the line on unauthorized personnel doing the talking on ATC radios? Remember, this has to be a rule which can be consistently, objectively, and impartially applied, and does not compromise safety to a degree unacceptable in "common carriage" operations (which require "the highest degree of safety and foresight humanly possible"). Unless you can produce such a rule, your point is pointless.
Perhaps so, but where do you draw the line? Remember, the line must be drawn, and it must be one which can be used to make objective, impartial, and consistent enforcement decisions which do not allow compromise of the required level of safety.
Nah, he was a smart person exercising sound judgment. Just like me! Took advantage of the multiple nor'easters this year to teach my 14 year old how to skid / not skid / get out of a skid in the snow, what ABS is all about, and how FWD or 4WD can pull you through a turn when the steering wheel does not cooperate at an intersection. Now the first time doing this is not solo at 17 should we have a couple mild winters.
Yet to see the inside of a cell . . . but the year is young!
When it involves labor/management relations (which this does), "common sense" long ago left the building -- all that matters is what's written in the contract and the rules, and what precedent cases have established about their meaning. I remember when Eastern Air Lines was unable to fire the mechanics and inspectors whose negligence allowed a 727 to launch from MIA to San Juan with no safety wire on the chip detectors on all three engines (and the airplane only staggered back to MIA with one engine still running, and it seized on the rollout) because the union dragged out the contract language.
Yup.
Doesn't answer the question -- where do you draw the line? Unless you can answer that question, the rest is irrelevant.
Were trying to put out the flames on an occupied airplane at the time?
Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. If either side can't live with the rule, change the rule so both sides can.
Didn't say the punishment must be the same for each offense, but the line must be drawn, and appropriate action that should be sufficient to deter repetition by the offender or others must be taken when that line is crossed. Failure to establish such a system ends only in chaos.
Neither you nor your dad would have liked what would have happened if it was my dog on whom you were operating and I found out about it, even if nothing went wrong.
Sorry, not an objective standard. By analogy, the fact that you are Michael Schumacher driving a Ferrari FXX doesn't excuse you from the 200/55 traffic ticket, even if there were no other cars visible on the highway. It must be a rule whose violation can be determined on the basis of objective facts, and "is safety compromised?" is not such a question with a quantifiable answer.
So how would you phrase the rule to allow this while ensuring safety was not compromised, but still ensuring the rule could still be applied objectively under the labor contract's terms?
You still haven't given me a way to phrase the rule which establishes when it's OK to let an unauthorized person talk and when it isn't. The "Holding Out" rules are written in legal terms defining what is and is not permitted, and the only question is whether the specific conduct violates the rule. Here, the rule is clear -- nobody talks other than authorized personnel. How would you rewrite that rule to relax it while providing objective standards as to when unauthorized personnel are allowed to do the talking?
That statement ignores a few thousand years of jurisprudential experience. In order to maintain order, rules are required. Absent rules, you have only chaos and anarchy, and those are not conducive to aviation safety.
You're entitled to your opinion, but your statement seemed to be that if the specific event in the specific circumstances did not actually compromise safety, then it would not be punished. I took issue with that, and I think my analogy is appropriate to that issue.
If you think that, you don't know the rules applicable to the various situations, and I don't think that's true. As you know, letting anyone other than authorized crew talk on the radio is in fact a violation of the rules under many parts of the FAR's. While it's permissible on plain vanilla Part 91 ops, it's not for commercial operators. The FAA sets higher standards when paying passengers are involved, and at JFK, paying passengers are always involved. Further, tower controllers never know for sure what part the flight is operating under, so they must provide the same maximum level of safe handling to all.
