# Pierre Cedric-Bonin, Air France 447, and career implications **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 3, 2015, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pierre-cedric-bonin-air-france-447-and-career-implications/721572 "2015-06-03T20:09:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pierre-cedric-bonin-air-france-447-and-career-implications/721572/1 "2015-06-03T20:09:29Z")
I’m a bit fascinated by Air France 447. I’m wondering: Had the other crewmembers managed to save the plummeting Airbus and 228 lives from death just barely in the nick of time - Bonin had been pulling back on the stick, precisely what you must \*not \*do in a stall - would Bonin’s career have been ended for good? Or might he have been allowed to fly airliners again, after rigorous re-training? How big a (no fatalities caused) mistake is a career-ending mistake? ---
**Author:** ![ssgenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@ssgenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ssgenius)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pierre-cedric-bonin-air-france-447-and-career-implications/721572/2 "2015-06-04T01:40:59Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I’m a bit fascinated by Air France 447. > > I’m wondering: Had the other crewmembers managed to save the plummeting Airbus and 228 lives from death just barely in the nick of time - Bonin had been pulling back on the stick, precisely what you must \*not \*do in a stall - would Bonin’s career have been ended for good? Or might he have been allowed to fly airliners again, after rigorous re-training? > How big a (no fatalities caused) mistake is a career-ending mistake? My own amateur opinion is that he would be re-trained and allow to fly some more as I suspect he would never make that mistake again and thus learning from his mistake. Of course, he may be petrified from going in a plane after that mistake so a lot of it would depend on his mental state ---
**Author:** ![ssgenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@ssgenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ssgenius)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pierre-cedric-bonin-air-france-447-and-career-implications/721572/3 "2015-06-04T03:59:04Z")
My point that I was trying to make is a person who has made a mistake (assuming it is not malicious) is often the best one to keep on as they have most likely learned from it as well as other pilots I think the saying that is relevant (sort of) is “fool me one, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me” Another saying is that it is better to learn from someone else’s mistakes than your own ---
**Author:** ![ssgenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@ssgenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ssgenius)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pierre-cedric-bonin-air-france-447-and-career-implications/721572/4 "2015-06-04T04:16:23Z")
On a similar note, I wonder if it would be the same for Captain Veldhuyzen van Zanten from the 1977 Canary Disaster where 2 747’s collided That freaked my mother out because the next day we were flying to LA for Disneyland when she saw it on TV ( I was only 9 so it didn’t register too much with me as it was on the other side of the world) We still went by the way > **[Tenerife airport disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster)** > > The Tenerife airport disaster occurred on March 27, 1977, when two Boeing 747 passenger jets collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport (now Tenerife North Airport) on the Spanish island of Tenerife. The collision occurred when KLM Flight 4805 initiated its takeoff run while Pan Am Flight 1736 was still on the runway. The impact and resulting fire killed everyone on board KLM 4805 and most of the occupants of Pan Am 1736, with only 61 survivors in the front section of the aircraft. A bomb s... For those who need a background on it ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pierre-cedric-bonin-air-france-447-and-career-implications/721572/5 "2015-06-04T04:21:28Z")
My experience is that people who make one significant fuck up are retrained and continue with their career, in fact, depending on how they subsequently deal with it, they may find that they come out of it all in a positive light. I know one pilot who very nearly ran out of fuel and is now the chief pilot for the same company. I know another who got too slow in the circuit (similar to the Asiana crash in SFO, he thought the autothrottle was engaged when it wasn’t) and had the stick shaker go. He also had other incidents and did not respond well to criticism and retraining. He is no longer working for us. If you have an incident and you report it, own any responsibility you had for it, and participate and engage positively in any retraining, you should find that it doesn’t have a negative impact on your career. That’s not to say it will help you either, if you were a career first officer you will probably still be a career first officer. It may be of some benefit when applying for a new job. A common interview question is to ask about incidents and accidents you have had and if you can spin a good story, hitting the positive points on how you dealt with the situation and what you have learned from it, that can look good to the interviewer. A pilot with a boring, no problems, career can struggle with that type of interview question. I’ve got quite a few experiences that I’ve learned a lot from, most of the time they’ve been caused or exacerbated by my own actions. With the right attitude these things can only make you a better pilot. ---
**Author:** ![ssgenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@ssgenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ssgenius)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pierre-cedric-bonin-air-france-447-and-career-implications/721572/6 "2015-06-04T04:27:02Z")
[quote=“Richard\_Pearse, post:5, topic:721572”] My experience is that people who make one significant fuck up are retrained and continue with their career, in fact, depending on how they subsequently deal with it, they may find that they come out of it all in a positive light. I know one pilot who very nearly ran out of fuel and is now the chief pilot for the same company. I know another who got too slow in the circuit (similar to the Asiana crash in SFO, he thought the autothrottle was engaged when it wasn’t) and had the stick shaker go. He also had other incidents and did not respond well to criticism and retraining. He is no longer working for us. If you have an incident and you report it, own any responsibility you had for it, and participate and engage positively in any retraining, you should find that it doesn’t have a negative impact on your career. That’s not to say it will help you either, if you were a career first officer you will probably still be a career first officer. It may be of some benefit when applying for a new job. A common interview question is to ask abott incidents and accidents you have had and if you can spin a good story, hitting the positive points on how you dealt with the situation and what you have learned from it, that can look good to the interviewer. A pilot with a boring, no problems, career can struggle with that type of interview question. I’ve got quite a few experiences that I’ve learned a lot from, most of the time they’ve been caused or exacerbated by my own actions. With the right attitude these things can only make you a better pilot. Thanks Richard. That explains exactly what I was trying to say, just worded better than I could put it and with your name I am sure that you are involved with aviation ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pierre-cedric-bonin-air-france-447-and-career-implications/721572/7 "2015-06-04T05:06:30Z")
Anybody can have one screw-up or oops moment, I suppose. The trick with managing personnel is recognizing the patently incompetent and getting rid of them before they have their final “oops”. There are some people who should not be in the position to hold others’ lives in their hands, through recklessness, failure to pay attention to detail, laziness, or just plain stupidity. One misjudgement in a very stressful situation is probably not an indicator of a habit. Read a lot of aircraft accident reports, a lot of pilot error is simply a competent person under stress drawing a blank on one item, which then snowballs. ---
**Author:** ![ssgenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@ssgenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ssgenius)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pierre-cedric-bonin-air-france-447-and-career-implications/721572/8 "2015-06-04T05:14:07Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Anybody can have one screw-up or oops moment, I suppose. > > The trick with managing personnel is recognizing the patently incompetent and getting rid of them before they have their final “oops”. There are some people who should not be in the position to hold others’ lives in their hands, through recklessness, failure to pay attention to detail, laziness, or just plain stupidity. One misjudgement in a very stressful situation is probably not an indicator of a habit. Read a lot of aircraft accident reports, a lot of pilot error is simply a competent person under stress drawing a blank on one item, which then snowballs. Good point However someone who is highly competent at one point may loose this competency as they get older and start making silly mistakes sometimes through complacency As my boss often told me, you are only as competent as your last job ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pierre-cedric-bonin-air-france-447-and-career-implications/721572/9 "2015-06-04T05:29:02Z")
The current safety buzz phrase is “just culture”. In the early days pilots were pretty much blamed for everything, the downside of that attitude is that it suppresses incident reporting because no one wants to tell their employer they’ve just done something that could get them fired, so if no else saw it, it didn’t happen. But if close calls aren’t reported then we miss an opportunity to learn from them. Then it swung the other way and we had a “no blame culture”, whatever screw up you made, if you report it no punitive action will be taken against you and we can all learn from your moment of stupidity. The problem with that is that sometimes people act negligently and deserve to be punished. Willful disregard for procedures and rules leading to a safety incident is reasonable grounds for punitive action to be taken. So now we have the “just culture”. “Just” as in “fair”. If you screwup but we’re acting reasonably and to the best of your ability then no blame will be placed on you, but if you were willfully disregarding rules and procedures then you can be sanctioned. Two examples of how this should work: 1. After take off the captain called for the gear up. Instead of putting the gear up the FO, suffering a major brain fart, selected the flaps up. They were way too slow to fly with flaps up and while the captain concentrated on achieving a safe flying speed, the FO selected the flaps back down again and they continued on normally. This type of error is serious and has caused accidents in the past. They reported the incident and no action was taken. A regular crew made a mistake and did their best to fix it. 2. In a company flying mid sized turbo props it became apparent from conversations with FOs that one particular captain was taking big risks. He was demonstrating take off techniques that were way outside our operating procedures and indulging in cowboy low flying antics. When this came out the captain was dismissed and the FOs given a big rap over the knuckles for allowing it to go on without reporting it. A willful disregard for rules and procedures resulting in unsafe actions that went unreported by complicit first officers.