Category: Airlines

The Finger of Suspicion

The Finger of Suspicion 1
The Finger of Suspicion by Lisa Roet

Fellow Travel Blogger Darren Cronian informs us in his Compulsory Fingerprinting to be introduced in UK Airports that soon to be opened Heathrow terminal 5 will have installed fingerprint taking machines and that more airports will follow suit.

Many of my posts are inspired by mere association. As soon as I saw Darren’s post I had to think of the photos I took this summer at 2007 The Hague Sculpture

The Finger of Suspicion 2
The Finger of Suspicion by Lisa Roet

Actually the sculpture of Lisa Roet, an artist of Down Under is not coined The Finger of Suspicion, but an earlier solo exposition of her.

Why the association?
It demonstrates a bit how I feel when I read such nonsense: Like a Caged Ape and that is a subject that intrigues Lisa Roet a lot.

Further investigations

If you Google on The Finger of Suspicion you get some interesting results:

  • Once It was a song by Dicky Valentine. Very poetic and romantic
  • J.F Kennedy used the phrase in a famous speech:
  • Shelley Jofre reports on a series of disturbing cases that have revealed serious flaws with some fingerprint evidence in Britain, see BBC
  • Within hours of the attacks in New York and Washington, the US and other western intelligence organizations put Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born terrorist in …the Guardian

Will it ever stop?

Cathay Pacific Ace Pilot Sacked after Youtube Publication of his Stunt.

Captain Ian Wilkinson astonished passengers and onlookers by taking a Cathay Pacific Boeing 77-300ER low over the landing strip shortly after take-off for its maiden trip to Hong Kong from Boeing’s US manufacturing plant. The plane was loaded with VIPS including the CP Chairman.

The captain is said to be one of the most senior aviators with the airline, and it is even reported he got a champagne toast upon arrival in Hong Kong.

However footage of the stunt on January 30 was posted on YouTube and Mr Wilkinson was first suspended and later dismissed after a disciplinary hearing. Cathay Pacific executives took a dim view of his stunt without proper authorization by the Airline.

Another senior pilot with the airline is quoted:

Wilkinson was very much one of the elite in Cathay Pacific and would have been very chummy with the airline executives he was flying that day.

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.

Someone else commented that if not for the Youtube publication, nothing would have happened.

More reading:
Gridskipper
UK Daily Mail and
Times Online

Post Alia

It reminds me of the story of ad guru Neil French who lost his position at WWP after a slip of the tongue that was followed by a Bloggers War back in 2005…hm Time Flies !