Cathay’s Chief Pilot upsets his bosses

I was reading a story in the Herald Tribune today about Cathay Pacific having sacked its Chief Pilot, Ian Wilkinson, for having done a low level flyby with a new Boeing 777 jet on a delivery flight from Seattle.

Apparently Captain Wilkinson’s bosses were not amused about him using a US$200 million airplane to show off his flying skills.

Such flybys have been done many times in the past, and are a sort of tradition in the aviation industry, but he was sacked because he hadn’t got the airline’s approval to do it.

The story said a video of the flyby had found its way to YouTube, so I went looking for it. I found it, but the quality wasn’t that good, but whilst I was searching for it I came across some amazing footage of a KLM MD-10 landing in a strong crosswind (click twice on the play button in the middle of the video screen):



Absolutely brilliant flying by the KLM pilot!

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