On the 11th of this month, local time, Icelandair staged an illegal “retirement farewell show”:A senior captain with 40 years of service, on his last commercial flight before retirement, to commemorate his career, he flew a Boeing 757 passenger plane at low altitude over his hometown town without permission.
The flight involved was Icelandair FI521, operating a Boeing 757-200, flying from Frankfurt to Keflavik Airport in Iceland.
After the flight enters the approach phase,The captain did not report to the airline or air traffic control, and ignored the co-pilot's dissuasion. He deviated from the standard route, significantly lowered the flight altitude, and passed over the Vestmannna Eyal volcanic archipelago in southern Iceland, his hometown..
According to residents at the scene, the minimum flight altitude of the plane was only about 400 meters, which was far lower than the minimum safe altitude in the area. When it passed by at low altitude, the houses on the ground shook violently and the noise was deafening. Many people mistakenly thought that there was an air crash and fell into extreme panic.
Fortunately, the captain finally controlled the plane to land safely. There were no casualties among the passengers and crew on board, and no substantial safety incident occurred.
After the incident,Icelandair immediately issued a public apology and characterized the matter as a serious violation of regulations. The captain involved has been handed over to the police and the Icelandic Transport Safety Bureau, and a thorough internal investigation has been launched simultaneously..
Netizens had different views on this. Some people understood the captain's feelings of saying goodbye to his career, but more voices believed that this move ignored civil aviation safety standards and put the lives of passengers on board and people on the ground at risk, and should be severely punished.
