UAL flight 940
 

FAA to investigate coffee spill that diverted flight - CNN.com

Any comments on this? UAL 940 diverts to Toronto. CNN asks about banning liquids from the cockpit. CNN does make some uninformed remarks.

Why are they wearing their hats in the cockpit? We don't even wear them anywhere anymore.

"Soooo Captain; if that is in fact your real title at this company, isn't it true that you insisted on having 2 mini-moos with your coffee? When will the insanity end Captain?!!"

Ban coffee? You might as well ban jet fuel.

aren't they the same? at least on the plane they seem akin...

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crews should not have coffee on the flight deck without driving mugs. this has happened so many times I can't tell you. The good thing is this crew fessed up and SAID they spilled coffee on the pedestal. I've had crews that wouldn't tell us and we'd find it later which made it DOUBLY bad for them in the ensuing report to the FAA. So once you know?? It's a simple matter to start ordering control panels, a little alchohol and contact leaner to swap them out. it would be a VERY simple matter to stock 3-4 driving mugs in the catering kit or even issue them to the pilots. They're going to make a big deal out of this but it's really not. Everbody makes a mistake Sometime and our pilots don't do this all that often. because surprisingly enough, United's coffee os FAR better than the "motor oil" I drank in the Navy!!

We have the starbucks type lids for our cups-most F/As bring them up that way. Sometimes they can't find them.

Yes, the flight diverted, but come on! This story is so overblown. Banning liquids from the cockpit? The FAA having to make sure the company "informed" its pilots not to spill or consume liquids over critical equipment?

Accidents happen. Turbulence can happen when passing drinks up to the other pilot. I've had more food crumbs and stuff get caught in buttons, etc. on the instrument panel from slob pilots than I have seen liquids spilled on the consoles.

They want to ban liquids/drinks? Add food to the list, too, and staff all flights with an IRO so that we take our breaks in a first class seat when we need to drink or eat something.

For me that will be once an hour so I can stay hydrated, thank you.

Had a Coke fall off the tray, and onto the pedestal, as a flight attendant was bring up the meals to us. As we all know, pressurized A/C and carbonation don't mix. LUCKILY nothing happened to the radios, or anything else. But I needed a new shirt, and MX had to wipe down the CB panel at our destination.

UA's policy used to be to use lids on the coffee cups....of course, can't tell you how many times catering failed to provide them. On the Bus at least, most of the FA's I'd fly with would pass the coffee over the outside shoulder when you had your seat forward and even put it in the cup holder in many cases. What a nice cockpit design.

Hopefully, there won't be some knee jerk reaction to this incident which is not new by any means. Regulating common sense never succeeds. You are correct however by saying that this type of stuff should be written up. Happened to me twice in my time at UA. Once on the 200 and once on the 300/500. Nothing happened but wrote it up anyway. Then again....we had a lot more mechanics then to deal with it!

Lee

Oh man, been there! What a PITA. One little pinhole leak and that can is gonna spray EVERY WHERE. Your only hope is that you or your comrade is quick with your hands and gets that mess into a garbage bag ASAP. Nothing like being sticky the rest of the flight.