777, 320 and 28
If you're a senior pilot for Cathay Pacific taking a brand new Boeing 777 from the factory to Hong Kong, performing a low-level fly-by without authorisation is not the smartest idea.
Particularly when you pull off such a stunt when the chairman of Cathay Pacific is aboard. I can imagine the post-flight conversation:
Two of your snot-nose jockeys did a fly-by on my tower at over 400 knots! I want somebody's butt, I want it now, I've had it!
Captain Ian Wilkinson, along with his co-pilot, swooped the 777 gear up to just 28 feet off the runway at 320mph (about 278 knots).
The VIP passengers were thrilled, the spectators cheered, and Wilkinson was toasted with champagne upon arrival in Hong Kong.
Then he was fired. Sacked. Terminated.
With extreme prejudice.
But only after video of the event turned up on the Internet. It turned out that Wilkinson did have approval the Seattle air traffic controllers, but not Cathay Pacific. As another senior Cathay pilot put it:
If no one else had found out about it, the incident would probably have gone no further. But once it began circulating on the internet and Hong Kong's Civil Aviation Department got wind of it, that was the end of him.
Maiden flights are treated as a bit of a jolly for executives with lots of champagne flowing and these fly-bys used to be done for a wheeze in the old days.
But they are dangerous because however good the pilot thinks he is, he isn't trained for it and the planes aren't designed for it.
Wilkinson was showing off, and most of the pilots might be sympathetic but they feel he got what he deserved when he was sacked.
Not to worry, Wilkinson can always get a job "flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog s#!t out of Hong Kong".
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