I would like advice for answering some of the basic HR questions that are often given during the interview process.
Questions such as...
1) What would you do if you suspected the captain was drunk?
2) What would you do if the captain wanted to go below minimums?

Any advice for these 2 questions and to any other similar questions would be great. I'm sure this info would help all us of preparing for interviews. It is easy to find answers to the technical questions, but I'm not sure how to answer these types of questions.

 

Tell him he should call in sick....................call out sick for him

Call a missed approach to tower.................if he continues take the plane(last resort)

 

Airline Pilot Interviews by Irv Jasinski

Lot's of good info in this book. I read it before mine and it was very useful.
Goes through practically every scenario you may encounter.

 

The underlying theme on all these sorts of questions is that they are looking for a socially functional individual who can navigate grey areas while interacting with others, but at the same time will not compromise safety.

These are the guys they don't want...

- The spineless ipod wearing FO who's just along for the ride and is too weak to stand up to a CA in the interest of safety (or just doesn't give a rat's patootie).

- The inflexible rule nazi who thinks every FAR and GOM paragraph is to be taken verbatim and even trivial non-compliance reported immediately to the CP and POI. This guy LOVES to throw people under the bus, and none of the interview captains want to risk having to fly with him. He makes a crappy FO, but when he upgrades the real problems start...


The right answer in all these scenarios is to attempt to:

A) Intervene in a manner that gives the offender an opportunity to correct his problem with minimal personal repurcusions.

B) If that doesn't work stop the safety violation by any reasonable means, assuming the safety violation is significant (ie don't abort the takeoff on the roll because the CA refuses to put on his shoulder harness )

 

A good answer I heard from someone regarding the below minimums was question the captain with something like "Captain, we are going below minimums, do you want to go around?"

If he says no or doesn't repond...THEN call tower. Usually a rhetorical question like that really gets to someone and they make the right decision.

Good luck on your interview!

 

bsh,

Both Rickair and Old VWs posted some excellent responses. Do you have an upcoming interview ??? There are plenty of gouges available if you don't already have them.

The only controversial question we get during UPS' interview is....

"So you come downstairs to meet for dinner on a layover and the Captain shows up in a dress....what do you say....

I usually respond, "Nice purse..matches your shoes". In turn, she usually buys me dinner. That's what Brown can do for me!!!

Good Luck,

FF

 

Not to be a jerk or anything, but if you do a search on this forum, you can probably find 50 different threads that have long drawn out answers on those two exact questions.