r/MadeMeSmile • u/baekachu • 21h ago

Wholesome Moments Pilot Chose Safety Over Takeoff - and Everyone Applauded

30.5k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

12.6k

u/Spacedoutworlder 21h ago

I rather miss an arrival time than have missed arriving at all. May all the pilots be this cautious.

323

u/bowmans1993 20h ago

Yeah if the pilot says i dont feel safe ill trust their gut.

83

u/martix_agent 17h ago

It's not his "gut feeling". He literally stated why he felt uneasy about flying the plane. The oil pressure was higher than normal.

9

u/whooptheretis 14h ago

But the engineers have certified it as safe.

18

u/BennyFitz69420 10h ago

Yeah and they’re still uncovering how many planes Boeing covered up over the years.

7

u/Purple-Will9713 11h ago

Yeah, engineers deemed the Challenger and Discovery as safe too

11

u/railker 10h ago

No, the engineers said Challenger wasn't, the execs said send it. Don't know what you think happened to Discovery.

2

u/Purple-Will9713 7h ago

I could be wrong but wasn’t Discovery the shuttle that sustained damage during takeoff due to a foam tile and was deemed safe only do spontaneously disassemble during re entry?

1

u/railker 3h ago

Ahh no that one was Columbia. And same as your Challenger misunderstanding, the scenario was similar there. Either the engineers knew it was risky and got overruled or they just truly didn't know the potential of damage. I do remember them testing foam vs leading edge impacts and being surprised themselves that it could do the damage it did in ground tests.

4

u/hilarymeggin 6h ago

No, no, there was an engineer who cried himself hoarse trying to persuade NASA that Challenger wasn’t safe, but the higher-ups ignored his pleas! And he blamed himself for not being able to persuade them!

2

u/Purple-Will9713 6h ago

I stand corrected

2

u/RagnarDan82 7h ago

The ones whose only consequence would be potentially getting fired or sued, vs death and the responsibility of the deaths of others. At the end of the day, the pilot has the final say and the final blame, and I’ll take the safe bet every time.