Air Canada dismisses crew concerns pilot was suicidal and threatened to ditch plane

Air Canada supports pilot caught in dispute

TORONTO — Air Canada is standing by a pilot whose co-workers refused to fly with him, fearing he was suicidal and accusing him of threatening to ditch his aircraft in the Atlantic Ocean.

The airline insisted this week that a dispute between the unnamed pilot and chief steward Hugh Bouchard aboard a Toronto-Paris flight in July 2008 amounted to nothing more than a minor conflict between staff and a healthy, competent pilot.

Public safety was never compromised but the dispute went to Federal Court.

In court documents Bouchard said the pilot threatened to ditch the plane over the Atlantic, saying “he had nothing to lose as he was being fired anyway.”

Airline spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said Thursday that the incident was investigated at the time, and the ensuing report made no reference to the pilot making a threat to ditch the plane.

However, the report did reflect Bouchard’s claim the pilot had said: “If I lose my job, I have nothing to lose.”

“This was not a depressed person speaking,” Fitzpatrick said. “It was said in the midst of a personnel dispute, and you can easily imagine many scenarios where someone might use this very common phrase, which has many meanings.”

An investigation at the time turned up no safety issues with the pilot, who is still flying for Air Canada, Fitzpatrick said.

Still, a month after that flight, four other flight attendants adamantly refused to set foot on a plane headed for Paris captained by the same pilot, based on Bouchard’s concerns.

That forced Air Canada to scramble a reassembled support crew onto the flight.

An independent federal safety officer was brought in to probe the work stoppage.

The safety officer talked to the flight attendants, union representatives, managers and others who knew the pilot, and found only the attendants had any concerns about him.

The officer then chalked up the incident to a normal workplace dispute, and decided the attendants had no right to refuse to work.

As a result, she decided there was no need to investigate whether the pilot’s mental state did in fact pose any danger.

Air Canada, which took the view that conflicts can arise at any time and the attendants should have used the carrier’s resolution process, agreed the pilot posed no threat.

However, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents the attendants, challenged her findings in Federal Court.

Judge John O’Keefe sided with the union.

O’Keefe found the investigator was wrong to conclude the conflict between pilot and steward was a “normal condition” of employment.

Instead, O’Keefe ruled this month, the investigator should have first decided whether the pilot’s alleged mental state did in fact constitute a danger that justified the attendants’ refusal to work.

Air Canada said it was not planning an appeal and no disciplinary action was ever taken.