who had a history of intimidating his first officers; and there was inadequate FAA
surveillance of the airline.
That the captain’s authority was strong in the cockpit can be deduced as follows.
The captain intimidated five out of six first officers interviewed. He had actually struck
one of them for mistakenly leaving the intercom on, and this fact had been passed on to
the first officer of the accident flight. His first officers never reported the fact that the
captain did not fly by the book, violated company policies on sexual harassment,
sleeping in flight, and flying with mechanical irregularities.
The first officer, on the other hand, was a new probationary employee who “had
just spent $8,500 of his own money to be trained for a job that provided an annual
earning potential of $18,000.” Such high stakes make it less likely that such a first
officer would challenge a captain who could have a detrimental effect on his career.
The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) transcript showed that “most of the captain’s
communication with the first officer was either to correct him or to tell him what to do.”
Other captains testified afterwards that the first officer had not needed these directions
during their flights. Some of these instructions were even absurd. Further, according to
the NTSB, “the statements of the first officer on the CVR suggest a tense and almost
reserved attitude toward the captain [Excessive Obedience]. Information provided by
the first officer to the captain was couched in a questioning manner rather than as an
assertion.” [Hesitant Challenging].
Finally, the airline only provided a single approach chart, which both captain and
first officer had to use. This vital piece of information could only be shared by making