Most performance or conduct dismissals are fairly routine in nature - failing to meet quality or quantity targets, or stealing from the employer, to give some common examples. While serious misconduct cases can result in a justified dismissal in the absence of prior warnings, performance-related dismissals do
generally require prior warnings and ample opportunity to improve.
Occasionally, however, a case crops up that does not appear to involve deliberate misconduct and yet is so serious that a straight dismissal is warranted. As in this case, they often involve rather colourful facts.
In the case concerned, two airline pilots tried to take off from a taxiway rather than the main runway at Hong Kong International Airport, according to The Age and Sunday Morning Post newspapers. The plane was only stopped when an alert air traffic controller saw it speeding on the taxiway and warned the pilots to stop. Their Boeing 737 was carrying 122 passengers and seven crew.
Taxiways at the airport apparently run the full length of the runways but are narrower, and have different lighting. Following an investigation by the city's aviation authorities the pilots were dismissed. It appears that their claim that the plane was not taking off but merely travelling at speed was not accepted.
If they were indeed trying to take off from a taxi-way, the situation can only be characterised as gross negligence, which put the lives of everyone on board at risk. A case of negligence also involving an airline occurred in New Zealand several years ago, when a package of aircraft parts was lost, grounding an aircraft at a cost of $40,000. In that case the Court said there was fault on the employee's part, but it did not entirely destroy the trust in the employment relationship. Nevertheless, the Court of Appeal has ruled that a single act of negligence can be enough to justify dismissal, if sufficiently serious.
This incident would probably produce the same outcome (dismissal) in New Zealand. After all, taking off on a taxi-way, where presumably other planes in the vicinity are travelling at much slower speeds, seems unsafe to say the least.
Greg Cain
Greg Cain is an employment lawyer at Minter Ellison Rudd Watts.
Photo: Glenn Jeffrey
