So experieced enough to know, that "Grow a Pair" should not be my response to fellow airman when they try to create an educational discussion on an event. Your flippant response shows that you, my friend are the know-it-all. Maybe they will re-name the Flight University in Fort Worth after you...AA73's F/U.

Actually this stuff has happened to me, I elected not to continue flight into unsafe conditions. You even said in an earlier post if you weren't able to land on the desired runway you would divert..but when I say it, it's anti-American Airlines. I'm not anti-American Airlines..I'm anti-bending metal, and anti-hurting people.

I don't fault the Capt for breaking off the approach. But given the facts (atc tapes and various reports), the Capt elected to tell the controller off and fly his own traffic pattern. Was he on fire ? Did he have a castastrophic failure ? Did he deviate to the extent of the emergency..which I'm guessing were the gusting winds.

I have heard fuel was a factor with a block-in value of 6.5K lbs of fuel....however it was never mentioned on the tape.

My point AA73, if you declare an emergency it allows you latitude to deviate from the FARs to the extend of the emergency...but I think you would be hard pressed to say that telling off a controller (that is trying to keep you away from hitting other aircraft) and then descending to 600 feet while on a heading of 120, only to climb back up to 1200 feet and head towards the runway shows loss of S.A and careless and reckless operation.

I hope you won't be put in that kind of situation where you are at 600' in busy arrival corridors and VFR traffic lanes, pointed away from the airport, TCAS in TA mode only, and after totally alienating a CRM resource (ATC).

Airline accident ratings

Seems as an American Airlines pilot you'd welcome constructive criticism...instead of telling us to "Grow a Pair".