Comment by serf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by serf | Hacker News Reader

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>One asshole deflated, props to those pilots (pun intended) for standing up for their colleague.

so, someone was socially rude, so some pilots decided to risk the lives of everybody on board to teach a lesson.

Aerobatics , even if 'borderline-legal', are still more stressful on the plane and components.

Stress still causes early failure, even if the stress was produced with legal maneuvers.

Hopping curbs in a passenger car is not usually illegal, it'll just destroy the car prematurely.

Spontaneous aerobatics still risk injury from gravity-flung objects in the cabin.

So, i'm glad the person you dislike had a lesson taught. I'm less glad that the crew acted unprofessionally.

I'm very glad that no incidents occurred as a result. The sky isn't the place for revenge and vengeance, especially on passenger flights.

I really hope that the crew has matured since then. There are plenty of ways companies and professionals can refuse service without risking collateral damage like that.

You're assuming that trained pilots somehow had no idea what they could safely do in their aircraft. Why?

The problem is that they put everyone lives at risk. It doesn't matter how convinced you are of your abilities if your life and the life of others is at immediate risk (like in a plane or on a bus)

Noone's life was at risk. It was just mildly more exciting than a normal flight and well within the range of permitted stresses on that particular plane.

GGP made an assumption and then reacted to that assumption as though it was a fact. We weren't doing loopings or Immelmans, just a couple of nice steep banks and a pretty steep ascent/descent. If the plane would have not been able to handle that it shouldn't have been flying in the first place. I've been through lots worse in single engine GA planes in rural Canada.

question : would the pilots be at fault if the victim of the prank had suffered a heart attack or stress-related stroke due to the thrill-ride?

Not legally, morally.

I tend to think so, given that creating a thrill-ride is outside the scope and purview of being a private pilot.

A professional, acting outside the scope of his profession, who seems to be acting with malice or disregard creates a situation that could quite literally kill a person who has certain conditions (even unknowingly).

>Noone's life was at risk.

I can't do the mental acrobatics that are necessary to see that as a zero risk situation.

It's not just the airframe that the pilot is tasked with worrying about, the safety of the occupants comes first.

If planes cannot maneuver in the air without significant fear of fatal injury they should (and would) not be flying.

This goes beyond your comment: but sometimes it feels like there is a growing tendency to value safety - or perceived safety - over the rest of our humanity.

Does that second paragraph make sense?

Wow, have you been keeping that un-ground axe in your back pocket for a while or something?

Relax.

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