Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz
He was probably a captain. The captain can basically tell the co-pilot to do everything, and the co-pilot will do it. So he was probably banking on just sitting there and hoping no one would notice.
|
This is very old school, though definitely still an issue in other parts of the world, like Asia and Africa. In western countries it has been largely eradicated. The First Officer is not just the Captains lacky, he is the Second in Command, and carries responsibility for safety of flight as well. If the FO willfully does anything that exposes the plane to undo risk, he would be responsible for that.
BTW, any modern airliner has a minimum crew requirement of 2. Additional crew are carried when augmentation is needed for longer flights.