American Airlines mechanic sabotaged plane's navigation system amid labor dispute, feds say

[Coventina]

Source: Washington Post

A mechanic for American Airlines has been arrested and accused by federal authorities of tampering with the navigation equipment on a plane shortly before it was scheduled to depart with 150 passengers onboard. The Miami-to-Nassau flight was grounded just before takeoff in July, authorities said.

The mechanic, Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, was upset that contract negotiations between his union and the airline had stalled, and he wanted to delay the flight with the hopes that he would make overtime pay, federal prosecutors allege.

According to federal investigators, Alani inserted and glued a piece of foam into the air data module system on American Airlines Flight 2834 on July 17, preventing it from functioning normally. The system, which sits beneath the cockpit, is responsible for monitoring an aircraft’s speed, pitch and other flight data.
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Crew members in the cockpit received an error message just as the Boeing 737-800 was approaching the runway and decided to abort the takeoff, authorities said.



Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/09/06/american-airlines-mechanic-sabotaged-planes-navigation-system-amid-labor-dispute-feds-say/?noredirect=on

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That is seriously messed up.
Throw the book at this guy!

[redstatebluegirl]

1. Well this makes me nuts since my husband just got on an American Airlines plane to fly home.....

[Mr.Bill]

2. Actually I would feel good

that a warning kicked in and the takeoff was aborted. Everything worked, safety wise, as it should have.

[Beakybird]

3. Now he'll get his overtime.

[NurseJackie]

5. Do prisoners have unions?

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/10/wages/

[Devil Child]

4. 150 counts of attempted murder seems appropriate

[bitterross]

6. Plus the crew! /nt

[mn9driver]

7. The first thing: This is messed up and this guy should do jail time. But:

These aircraft have redundant air data computers. He disabled only one, knowing that the caution would pop up long before the plane reached flying speed and it would return to the gate for repair.

Even without the caution the pilots would have caught it early and aborted—-We cross check airspeed carefully during the roll.

And even if they had somehow gotten airborne, the failed computer would be easily identified and both pilots would switch to the remaining good one. There is an established procedure for just this thing.

It’s not like the 737MAX where a single failed air data sensor makes the airplane do its best to kill you. The 737-800 doesn’t do that.

The risk was extremely low that this bonehead maneuver would result in a significant problem; but however small, the risk was there and this guy needs to go to jail for sure. But not for something crazy like attempted murder. In his position, if he wanted to kill people there were a lot of things he could have done that would be a lot more likely to do that.

[bluecollar2]

10. Well explained. On behalf of aircraft mechanics

In general I appreciate your thoughtful post.

[Merlot]

13. Whether the risk was extremely low is not the issue

This caused the disruption of hundreds of peoples lives. 150 passengers did not get to where they needed to go, many did not make connections. The people boarding this plane at it's next stop were also re-routed. This thing wil have cost the airline a lot of money, so this mechanic should also be libel for the costs incurred by the airline and passengers.

I've known a couple people in the airline industry who did stupid things. A few got fired, one got prision time.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

14. Hasn't there been a handful of crashes where it was obvious the pilots DIDN'T cross check on roll?

Planes with pitot static system ports covered with masking tape or other clogs that caused crashes?

I think in a couple of those cases the remedy was right in front of the Captain on the backup instruments but the plane still ended up in the ocean.

I get what you are saying with back up systems and such but that mechanic was really playing with Fire. If a piece of masking tape can do it...

[Devil Child]

15. Mr. Alani should also know there is a slim chance that redundancy measures would fail

Or the chance that human error would prevent proper reaction to the system failure. I see no benefit in minimizing the potential harm of his actions as this is airline safety. He was gambling with the lives of 150+ people. Fuck him. He needs to get hit with every applicable federal and state charge suffer the full consequences of his actions.

[keithbvadu2]

8. Stunts like this ruin credibility for the union and workers.

Stunts like this ruin credibility for the union and workers.

[bluecollar2]

9. As a former AA mechanic and Maintenance Quality Inspector

Retired 3 years ago all I can say is...

I saw a variance of this coming...

And it's not just a problem at AA.

[Turbineguy]

11. The guy's an idiot.

Or somebody is paying him to damage the Union.

[Hekate]

12. That's attempted murder

[Devil Child]

16. +1 Hekate! n/t

[Jake Stern]

17. Heckuva job there

He not only put the lives of 150 people at risk he also gave anti-labor groups a huge shiny gem to use against unions.