Brawling airline pilots suspended after midair cockpit fight forces cabin crew to intervene

Two Air France pilots have been suspended after coming to blows in the cockpit of an Airbus jetliner during a flight between Geneva and Paris, the latest safety issue to plague the airline.

The dispute between the pilot and copilot turned physical shortly after take-off as the plane gained altitude, with the men taking each other by the collars after one possibly hit or slapped the other, according to a report by Switzerland’s La Tribune newspaper. Cabin crew intervened after hearing noise in the cockpit, and one member spent the rest of the flight in the cockpit with the pilots, La Tribune said.

The incident, which occurred in June, was resolved quickly, and the flight proceeded normally, according to a spokeswoman for the carrier, who confirmed a report by Switzerland’s La Tribune newspaper. She added that the pilots are awaiting a decision by management on their “totally inappropriate behaviour”.

France’s civil-aviation safety-investigation authority, the Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses, said it wasn’t notified of the incident because there were no consequences for the flight.

The revelation of the altercation comes on the heels of a report published by the authority last Tuesday concluding that a series of lapses at the French arm of Air France-KLM pointed to “changes and even violations of procedures leading to a narrowing of safety margins”. The carrier responded with a pledge to carry out a safety audit and beef up post-flight analyses.

Tuesday’s report focused on another Air France flight during which pilots of an Airbus A330 travelling over Chad in December 2020 detected at cruising altitude that 1.4 tons of fuel was missing from the plane’s tanks. The crew skirted safety procedures and increased risks of a fire — midair or on landing — by not shutting down the leaking engine or opting to touch down at the closest airport, the report concluded. The aircraft landed safely.

In April the authority also opened an investigation into the cause of another Air France in-flight incident that it called “serious”. Pilots of a Boeing 777 airliner aborted a landing at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport after telling air-traffic controllers the plane was unresponsive at the approach; a pilot was heard saying it was “going nuts”. The flight from New York landed safely on its second attempt. — Bloomberg