Ya, I read the whole thing last night. Glad to hear that the CA got his job back. It's nice to see the courts stand up for CA authority... because we all know MGT won't.... even when it is in their best interest to. The CA was trying to preserve safety AND prevent damage to company property. Management should have thanked him for having their best interests in mind including his own, instead he was terminated wrongfully. Maybe they should let some of our dysfunctional managers go instead of targeting pilots who stand up in the name of safety.

I also read it. Way to stick it to Comair mgt! Somewhere in there SB even testifies that the PIC rule doesn't really full authority. Only in some cases it does. My jaw dropped on reading what SB actually said under oath!

All I know is that I'm not going to fly an aircraft with the door assist defered-- it sounds very unsafe!

I saw that to OMG!. could you imagine how dangerous this place would be if MGMT had that authority

...the Cincy paper had an article on this today, and I am curious about a reference to testimony regarding flying one low and unpressurized because "....only tape was holding the door shut for that flight."

Are these not plug type doors?

Not the main cabin door.

The main cabin door is not, that is the door in question.

As for tape holding it shut. That part was confusing, it sounded like the tape was holding the door shut on the ground because the wires that are part of the door assist were out of whack and keeping it from latching. If it has trouble latching on the ground.

Thanks for the reply. Does the system in question power the door open/closed or just provide a counter weight so it does not free fall open?

Yes, it Powers the door up, where it is then manually latched. It free falls open, but the assist acts as a counter weight to prevent it from slamming.

There is a set of wires on each side that attach to some pulleys and the wires can come off the pulleys if they get caught on someones luggage or the catering guys hit them while jamming the supplies up there. The power assist won't work if the wires are off the pulleys (the wires are slack and don't do their job). If you try to manually shut it with the wires off the pulleys the wires will go slack and jam in the door frame preventing you from latching it or making it really difficult and risking damage to parts of the door.

Oh yeah! This particular FAA inspector decided to hit us up two days in a row. He was grounding them for chippped paint, worn bolts, screws, and other petty issues. They pretty much had us by the nutts. I know they blitzkrieg'd Pinnacle a couple of weeks a go.