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Comment by cmurf | Hacker News Reader

The pilots were possibly subjected to intimidation by their employer, and this aspect must be investigated. If true, intimidation will have distorted the judgment of the pilots making them less liable than they otherwise would be. Economic coercion, threats to career, may be more powerful than threats of violence. And as soon as that happened, or the company didn't act on their safety concerns, the pilots should have sought legal advice.

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I can relate to how hard it can be to do the right thing while being employed. But ultimately I would say it rests on each of us to do the right thing. If you work in a public safety facing job, that amplifies your responsibility. For pilots and captains, that would count even more. I recently read the NTSB-report linked to from HN regarding the sinking of the El Faro [1]. What struck me was that each subordinate could have and should have (according to NTSB as well) acted out more strongly. Same goes here, and that's why I'm harsh at the whistle blowers. It's too little, too late.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16757343

Corporate power structure is in direct conflict with FARs. FAR gives primary decision making power to pilots, but corporate structure essentially makes the CEO a dictator. And we have a culture and a legal system that defers to that CEO when there's no accidents. And then there's all kinds of outcry and hindsight if there's an accident. We really aren't creating fully trustworthy conditions for timely whistleblowing as evidenced by the fact multiple pilots expressed concerns, and now people are dead.

I've lost count how many NTSB reports, dozens, I've read where corporate power dictated operational outcome to a pilot against the pilot's better judgment, and everyone on board dies. And every time NTSB says the corporate dictate is a contributing factor to the accident, but ultimately the accident itself was due to pilot error.

So strictly blaming the pilot isn't eliminating accidents where the pilot's judgment was perturbed by company pressure. If the company is shown to have intimidated pilots, there needs to be accountability for it, and serious consequences.

IIRC TFA says some pilots are seeking whistleblower protection now.

The helicopter pilot community is so small they were afraid of getting blacklisted.

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The company is gonna get sued out of existence. The NYT report made them look super shady.

I'm not certain they will get sued out of existence. Company no doubt has a liability waiver contract that holds them harmless no matter what, with a fixed maximum liability even if they're negligent. Now whether that holds up in court... point is, outcome is uncertain.

If the company used intimidation tactics, that may be a crime, a corrupt intent to subvert compliance with FARs as it pertains to safety. If so, I sincerely hope a prosecutor is assigned who is skeptical of blaming only pilots, and will recognize intimidation as significant distortion on pilot judgment and authority. I don't like the idea of the corporate veil protecting a CEO who overrides the judgment of pilots let alone also uses economic coercion by threatening their career - so if that's really what happens I hope he's criminally prosecuted.

But as a pilot, I still can't completely hold pilots blameless when they saw enough safety concerns to say something about it to the company, witnessed insufficient remediation, did nothing else, and now people are dead.

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