I flew for a company once in which the owner had knocked three pilots unconscious while flying...with one hand, across the cockpit. He was proud of the fact, too. A senior pilot there had a female copilot, the only one he ever had, who pushed him hard he threw her out of the airplane on the ramp one day, and threw all her things out after her.
While flying an aproach to LAX in IMC, in a Learjet 24D, I had a brief discussion with a captain once. I was the F/O, pilot flying, on an ILS and cleared for the approach. I noted the captain twizzling the fuel gauge, often done for a quick check on Vref speed based on weight. I thought that's what he was doing, when he announced he thought we could turn around at LAX without getting fuel.
That took me by surprise, both because it was an idiotic thing to say, but becasue it was out of place when we were flying the approach. I commented that I didn't think so, that we needed fuel. I should have waited until we were on the ground, but we were a long way out yet, and I knew this captain had a penchant for returning home with the low fuel light on and very little petrol.
He replied that I would do what I was told, and like it, to which I replied that would not be the case, we would be buying fuel. He told me if I wanted to keep my job, I'd shut my mouth and do what I was told. I told him once we got on the ground I'd be taking a commercial flight home, and he could explain why he needed a new first officer.
He then began shouting loudly that I was lucky he didn't shatter my jaw right then and there, that he was going to put a shotgun in my mouth and blow the top of my head off and splatter my brains across the cockpit, and then he shouted that he was going to open the door and throw me out of the airplane, and I had better not talk back to him again.
Now admittedly this was not a good time to say anything more, but he'd pushed one button too many by then, and I had just about enough. I asked, "What did you say?"
Just then we broke out, and he replied, "I said I have the runway in sight." I landed, and as the mains touched, he took the airplane away from me, saying, "I have the airplane."
That a copilot got slapped after a heated arguement in a third-rate airline abroad about who-knows-what, is nothing. I've seen a whole lot worse.
As an aside, the pilot mentioned above is still flying, though I went right to the chief pilot after that incident and told him in no uncertain terms that I wouldn't fly with the man again.
Someone mentioned FLOPS...someone correct me, but a friend flew for them for a time, and told me that things were bad enough at one point that several crews had come to blows on the ramp after deplaning the passengers. That's second hand, but I recall him saying that it had happened in front of passengers, too. Anybody?
While a ticketed passenger in Lae in Papua New Guinea, I got tossed out of the airlplane physically, along with several other passengers, when soldiers of the PNG defense force, armed with automatic weapons, wanted our seats. They were headed for Rabaul and then to Bougainville to deal with fighting going on against the BRA, and were on board with their web bear and weapons, and decided they wanted our seats. We were physically tossed out the door, along with our things, onto the ramp. Now we had paid for those tickets, but in a fit of good will, gave them without arguement to the nice men with less than kindergarten educations, holding the automatic weapons. That was more than fair.
