An Aer Lingus pilot has said it was “humiliating” to have to go back to the cockpit as a first officer after being stripped of command responsibility for failing to immediately file an air safety report over what he considered a “non-event”.
Declan McCabe (53), who has been flying for the airline since he joined as a cadet in 1999, claims his demotion last year was penalisation linked to a dispute that had started in July 2011, when he was disciplined after reporting that he was too fatigued to fly.
The airline denies statutory complaints brought by Mr McCabe under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, and the Payment of Wages Act 1997 at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
The tribunal heard Mr McCabe was disciplined on the basis of failing to make a timely air safety report over an incident on June 8th, 2023, when the Airbus A321neo jet he was flying in from Munich failed initially to pick up a radio navigation beacon at Dublin Airport.
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The company decided he had failed in his safety reporting duties and no longer had its trust and confidence at the senior flying grade, the tribunal heard.
He was informed of his demotion on New Year’s Day 2024, a sanction upheld on appeal, the tribunal heard – a process Mr McCabe believed to be “predetermined”.
“Not only was this an attack on my career, my stature, this was a direct attack on my wife, my family, my reputation,” he said.
Mr McCabe’s evidence was that he had written directly to Air Nav Ireland in relation to the beacon incident after being forwarded correspondence from a senior manager, Captain Colm Wynne.
He said Capt Wynne only went as far as urging him to reconsider an earlier decision not to file a safety report, but that when he was directed to do so later by the airline’s head of safety and security, Capt Conor Nolan, he did so within half an hour.
He wrote in the report that he had delayed out of fear of “retribution from Colm Wynne” the tribunal heard.
David Byrnes, appearing instructed by Setanta Solicitors, said his client and Capt Wynne had “history” after the senior pilot decided in 2011 that Mr McCabe deserved demotion after reporting that he was too fatigued to fly an aircraft.
He said Capt Wynne was “the man who came for my client, and continued to come for him”. Mr McCabe agreed with his barrister that there was “no love lost” between himself and Capt Wynne.
Mr Byrnes asked him: “How does it feel to show up as first officer having been stripped of your stripes?”
“As it was meant to be – humiliating – that was the purpose of it,” Mr McCabe said.
Mr McCabe’s position is that the decision on whether or not to make an air safety report was a judgment call for him as commander in the circumstances.
Aer Lingus’s barrister, Tom Mallon, appearing for the airline instructed by Arthur Cox, said Mr McCabe “still doesn’t seem to accept the errors of his ways”.
The June 8th, 2023 flight, with 156 passengers and crew aboard, landed safely after Mr McCabe adjusted its heading and succeeded in locking on to the signal, the complainant told the tribunal.
Mr McCabe said he initiated the turn back within a matter of seconds, ahead of being directed to make the manoeuvre by air traffic control, calling what happened “a non-event from a flying point of view”.
Holding a pen to demonstrate, Mr McCabe said air traffic control cleared his flight, Shamrock Three Victor Charlie, to intercept the line of the localiser beacon signal at a 30 degree angle on approach to Dublin.
“We’re beyond the centre line. We go through the localiser,” he said. “We turn the aircraft 60 degrees to the left,” he said, turning the pen, “and the aircraft subsequently captures the localiser system,” he added.
It was later alleged in an airline investigation that the flight crew had “mistakenly” entered the settings for the wrong runway beacon.
The tribunal heard the airline took the view that the actions of Mr McCabe and his first officer in relation to the filing of a safety report could be classed as being on the scale of a “reckless violation”, which Mr McCabe considered “bizarre”.
Adjudication officer John Harraghy adjourned proceedings on Wednesday. The hearings are set to continue next week, starting with Mr Mallon’s cross-examination of the complainant.
