JetBlue CEO on pilot’s mid-air meltdown: ‘It started medical, but clearly wasn’t’

[DieselDragRacer]

JetBlue CEO Dave Barger spoke out on Wednesday, a day after one of the airline's captains had a mid-air meltdown, causing a flight from New York to Las Vegas to be diverted to Amarillo, Texas.


"It was a tough event to say the least as it was unfolding yesterday," Barger said in an interview on the "Today" show. "But I think that ... the training that took place with the co-pilot who became the pilot in command and the entire cabin crew and then working with the customers--that's the follow-up to this story."


The captain, Clayton Osbon, became incoherent and the co-pilot locked him out of the cockpit. Osbon began shouting about threats from al-Qaida, Iran, Iraq and bombs aboard flight, and was subdued by several passengers, including an off-duty police officer. He was strapped down and later transported to a local medical facility.


Barger said Obson was "under the custody of the FBI."


"I've known the captain personally for a long period of time," Barger said. "There [was] no indication of this at all in the past. Consummate professional."


On Tuesday, JetBlue's stated that Osbon had a "medical situation," but the CEO admitted it was more than that.


"What happened at altitude and the call into the FAA is that we had a medical situation and that's how we responded," Barger said. "Clearly, especially in today's [real-time] media, we know that it also became a security situation. I think as we know less than 24 hours later, it started medical, but clearly wasn't medical."

 

[RiddleEagle18]

He should be careful what he says. If it turns out this guy had an aneurysm or brain tumor hes gonna end up suing the company for defamation.

 

[Andy]

He should be careful what he says. If it turns out this guy had an aneurysm or brain tumor hes gonna end up suing the company for defamation.

My thoughts exactly.

He should have focused on the professional manner that the rest of the crew showed during what appears to be a medical emergency.

 

[DieselDragRacer]

Subdued JetBlue pilot is 'consummate professional'

JetBlue identified the pilot as Clayton Osbon, who was taken for medical care Tuesday after the co-pilot diverted the flight to Amarillo from its course from New York to Las Vegas.


The company's CEO and president Dave Barger told NBC's "Today" show Wednesday that Osbon's situation began as a "medical situation" and became a "security situation" as passengers and crew members restrained him.


"I've known the captain personally for a long period of time," Barger said of Osbon. "There's been no indication of this at all in the past."


Osbon's LinkedIn page describes him as a flight-standards captain who also works in pilot recruitment and leadership development. He earned degrees from Hawthorne College in aeronautical physics and Carnegie Mellon University in physics.


Barger commended the company's workers and passengers for responding well to the incident.


"That was a tough situation at altitude," Barger said. "The customers and crew did a great job."


A JetBlue spokeswoman declined comment on whether the company has begun any disciplinary proceedings against Osbon.


The captain's wife, Connye Osbon, told ABCNews.com that she hasn't spoken with him yet.


"There are several different sides to every story. Just keep that in mind," she said. "I don't have a clue… I have no idea what's going on."


The incident was a rare one and frightening for passengers. The captain was locked out of the cockpit and wrestled to the floor by passengers after screaming about a bomb during a flight from New York to Las Vegas.


At the time JetBlue said that the captain of Flight 191, which was diverted to Texas on Tuesday morning, had a "medical situation" and that an off-duty captain traveling on the flight entered the cockpit before the landing "and took over the duties of the ill crewmember once on the ground" in Amarillo.


The co-pilot became concerned that the captain was behaving erratically during the flight, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which is investigating in coordination with the FBI, the Transportation Security Administration and Amarillo police.


"The captain had exited the cockpit during the flight, after which the co-pilot locked the door," said Brie Sachse, an FAA spokeswoman. "When the captain attempted to enter the locked cockpit, he was subdued by passengers."


Tony Antolino, a security executive from Rye, N.Y., realized something was wrong on the flight when the captain left the cockpit and starting walking erratically through the cabin, drinking water and becoming agitated.


Antolino, 40, says he and several other passengers realized they needed to subdue him after the co-pilot locked the captain out of the cockpit. The captain started yelling about Iraq and Afghanistan, then told passengers to start reciting the Lord's prayer.


"That's when everybody just tackled him and took him down," says Antolino, an executive with a security firm headed to an industry conference. "We just physically stood on top of him until the flight was diverted and we landed in Amarillo."


Although flight attendants have had outbursts and had to be restrained, it's extraordinarily rare for a pilot. The incident raises questions about pilots' mental and physical fitness as well as passengers' safety when a captain and first officer are behind locked and hardened cockpit doors.


Tom Murphy, another passenger, told CNN the flight attendants tried to take the captain to the back of the plane, but he broke free and ran to the front, threatening to blow up the plane and saying there was a bomb on board.


"He started screaming about al-Qaeda and possibly a bomb on the plane and Iraq and Iran and about how we were all going down," Gabriel Schonzeit of New York City, who was seated in the third row, told the Amarillo Globe-News. "It seemed like he went crazy."


Heidi Karg, another passenger on the flight, told CNN that the man was shouting, "I need the code! Gimme the code! I need to get in there!"
"We heard the word 'bomb,'" Karg said. "We didn't know exactly what was going on."


Several passengers wrestled the captain to the floor. David Gonzalez, 50, a former New York City Department of Corrections officer, told ABC News he put the captain in a choke hold.


"We got to get this plane down," Gonzalez, who was traveling to an annual security show, said he recalled thinking. "This guy is nuts."


Former pilot John Cox, president of Safety Operation Systems, said he could recall only a couple of incidents similar to Tuesday's in 40 years in commercial aviation.


Cox said the first officer could have landed the plane safely, even without assistance from the off-duty captain. Cox said crewmembers are trained to restrain combative passengers under a program called Crew Resource Management that could have applied to the pilot.


"The same training to restrain an abusive passenger that presents a physical threat could be utilized against a crewmember," Cox said. "It was great that there was another captain that was on the flight that could assist the first officer. Had he not been there, though, the first officer is completely capable and trained to land the aircraft. There was never a risk to the passengers."


Airline pilots must have a first-class medical certificate, which is renewed annually if the pilot is under 40 and every six months over that age, according to the FAA. As part of that process, the pilot must have a physical exam by an FAA-designated medical examiner, who assesses the pilot's psychological condition as part of the checkup. The examiner can also order additional psychological testing.


No official mental health testing is required. Instead, pilots are trained to be on the lookout for any sign of mental distress among their peers. "The mental health side is constant monitoring from your co-workers," said Dave Funk, a retired Northwest Airlines captain now an aviation consultant with Laird & Associates.


If someone's personality changes drastically, he said, "we're going to pull him aside. Management will get involved and not in a hostile fashion. We work with people."


"I'd say the system functioned properly," Funk said. "There's a reason we have two pilots. There's a reason we have flight attendants. … One healthy pilot on the flight deck who's qualified would have no problem landing the plane."


Antolino commended the co-pilot for recognizing the captain's erratic behavior, getting him out of the cockpit and landing the plane safely.
"The co-pilot from JetBlue was the real hero for having the sense to recognize that something was wrong here," Antolino says.


In August 2010, an upset JetBlue flight attendant, Steven Slater, pulled the emergency chute on a flight from Pittsburgh International Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. He went on the plane's public-address system, swore at a passenger who he claimed treated him rudely, grabbed a beer and slid down onto the tarmac.


Slater completed a court-ordered treatment program and was sentenced to one-year probation. "That was one moment; that was not indicative of who I am," Slater said at sentencing.


On March 9, American Airlines passengers were settling in for a trip from Dallas to Chicago when a flight attendant launched into a rant on the public-address system about 9/11 and the safety of the plane.


Several passengers wrestled the woman into a seat while the plane was still on the ground, and the attendant was taken to Parkland Hospital for evaluation.

 

[scoreboardII]

Just saying he it wasn't a medical issue, gives the poor guy a right to sue for damages.

 

[ozpilot]

"Cox said crewmembers are trained to restrain combative passengers under a program called Crew Resource Management that could have applied to the pilot."

Ahhh ... so that's what CRM is ..

 

[gator_hater]

What the man said was that it began as a medical issue and evolved into a security issue. I don't see any character assassination. That might be if he was saying that the captain was faking a medical condition. All the CEO said was there was an evolution to the incident, he also said the Capt was a great guy he had known personally for years.

I hope the Capt will be OK and gets all the help he needs. But for all the sue happy folks I hope he goes after JetBlue for defamation and loses, and then has to pay their legal bills. We've got to put an end to all this litigation for no reason just to get a payday.

 

[polarjet205]

I hope he recovers, but would think his career in the front seat is in touble... agree the CEO should have stuck with how the crew followed procedures and did just fine...

On another thought however, it's pretty scary to think what could have happened had this guy been on the flight deck behind locked doors and had ( whatever this was ) occur... the F/O would have to deal with him alone.. the outcome could be much worse...

What effect and knee jerk reaction will the FAA take to test or evaluate all flight crews, could be ugly... just saying..

 

[OurMoney1]

The CEO can say whatever he wants. Jetblue pilots can't sue their leadership, they have a process to follow as outlined by their pilot employment contracts. This guy Barger has a ticket to say what he wants and the burden lies on a process and Osbon to establish harm.

 

[DieselDragRacer]

JetBlue suspends captain who disrupted flight

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A JetBlue captain who yelled about a bomb and urged passengers to pray on a Las Vegas-bound flight has been suspended, the airline said Wednesday.


Clayton Osbon has been taken off active duty pending a review of the incident, JetBlue Airways spokeswoman Allison Steinberg said. Passengers wrestled Osbon to the ground after his bizarre rant, as a co-pilot shut him out of the cockpit and took command of the Tuesday morning flight from New York.


Passengers first noticed something was wrong when Osbon stormed out of the cockpit and tried to force his way into an occupied bathroom. The captain's co-workers tried to calm him as he became more jittery, coaxing him to the back of the plane while making sure that he didn't return to the plane's controls.


Then he sprinted up the cabin's aisle, ranting about a bomb, screaming that the plane would "They're going to take us down!" and urging confused passengers to pray.


"Nobody knew what to do because he is the captain of the plane," said Don Davis, the owner of a Ronkonkoma, N.Y.-based wireless broadband manufacturer who was traveling to Sin City for a security industry conference.


"You're not just going to jump up and attack the captain," Davis said.
But four men did tackle just that, using seat belt extenders and zip tie handcuffs to restrain and pin Osbon to the floor for more than 20 minutes while the co-pilot and an off-duty pilot who was aboard landed the plane in Amarillo, Texas.


The company's CEO and president Dave Barger told NBC's "Today" show that Osbon is a "consummate professional" whom he has "personally known" for years. Osbon has been a pilot for JetBlue since 2000.


There is nothing in the captain's record to indicate he would be a risk on a flight, Barger said Wednesday.


It was not clear if Osbon would face any criminal or civil charges for disrupting the flight.


"Clearly, he had an emotional or mental type of breakdown," said Tony Antolino, a security executive who sat in the 10th row of the plane and tackled the pilot when he tried to re-enter the cockpit.


"He became almost delusional," Antolino said after arriving in Las Vegas from Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport some six hours after schedule.


Josh Redick, who was sitting near the middle of the plane, said the captain seemed "irate" and was "spouting off about Afghanistan and souls and al-Qaida."


Elton Stafford, who lives across the street from Osbon in Richmond Hill, Ga., said he was shocked at the captain's outburst.


"Clayton's a great guy. Loves to have a good time, loves the outdoors. He just loves people," Stafford said late Tuesday. "They're the kind of neighbors that everybody wants."


The airline described the incident as a "medical situation" involving the captain of JetBlue Airways Flight 191 from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Airline officials said he was taken to a hospital.


The outburst came weeks after an American Airlines flight attendant was taken off a plane for rambling about 9/11 and her fears the plane would crash. John Cox, an aviation safety consultant and former airline pilot, said he could recall only two or three cases in 40 years where a commercial pilot had become mentally incapacitated during a flight.


Gabriel Schonzeit, who was sitting in the third row, said the captain said there could be a bomb onboard.


"He started screaming about al-Qaida and possibly a bomb on the plane and Iraq and Iran and about how we were all going down," Schonzeit told the Amarillo Globe-News.


"A group of us just jumped up instinctually and grabbed him and put him to the ground," Antolino said.


The Federal Aviation Administration said the co-pilot had locked the cockpit.


An off-duty JetBlue captain who was a passenger on the flight entered the flight deck and took over Osbon's duties before landing in Amarillo, the airline said in a statement.


The customers and crew "just did a great job," JetBlue's Barger said. "That was a true team effort at 35,000 feet."


Osbon was taken to a hospital, the airline said.


The FBI was coordinating an investigation with the airport police, Amarillo police, the FAA and the Transportation Safety Administration, said agency spokeswoman Lydia Maese in Dallas. She declined to comment on arrests.
Airlines and the FAA strongly encourage pilots to assert themselves if they think safety is being jeopardized, even if it means contradicting a captain's orders, Cox said. Aviation safety experts have studied several cases where first officers deferred to more experienced captains with tragic results.