A furious airliner captain reportedly locked his co-pilot out of the cockpit after she decided to take a bathroom break mid-flight.
The SriLankan Airlines captain allegedly blocked the first officer during a 10-hour flight from Sydney to Colombo on Monday and has been grounded since.
According to local reports, the co-pilot found herself unable to access the cockpit after excusing herself to go to the bathroom, leaving the pilot alone for a brief moment.
The pilot became enraged because she had not prepared her replacement in the cockpit in accordance with standard operating procedures, leading to a tense confrontation between the two mid-flight.
Following the pilot’s petty reaction, a senior flight attendant had to intervene and negotiate with the captain over the plane’s intercom system before he finally allowed his co-pilot to return to the cockpit.
A SriLankan Airlines captain has been suspended after locking his co-pilot out of the cabin after she used the bathroom mid-flight.
The pair had allegedly become involved in a verbal altercation before the first officer left the cabin because he had not arranged for a cabin crew member to sit on the flight deck while she was in the bathroom.
Although regulations differ from airline to airline, SriLankan Airlines requires at least two people to be in the cabin at the same time.
Many airlines and aviation authorities enforce rules requiring at least two qualified crew members to be present in the cabin at all times during a flight.
This rule was reinforced after incidents in which lone pilots were left in control of the cockpit, leading to safety concerns.
In a statement, the airline confirmed it had grounded the captain involved in the incident aboard flight UL607 from Sydney to the Sri Lankan capital Colombo on September 21.
At the time of the incident there could have been up to 297 passengers on board the Airbus A330-300.
“The airline is cooperating fully with the relevant authorities and the captain has been detained on the ground pending the outcome of the investigation,” the statement explains.
“Safety and compliance with all regulatory requirements remain SriLankan Airlines’ top priorities.”
In 2015, all 144 passengers and six crew members died on Germanwings Flight 9525 after its pilot locked himself in the cockpit and deliberately crashed the plane.
Among the dead were 16 German schoolchildren and an opera singer traveling with her baby.
Former US President Barack Obama also then expressed his condolences for the “horrible” accident, which he described as “particularly heartbreaking” because many of the plane’s passengers were young.
The incident has led several airlines to tighten rules on cabin occupancy.
And in 2022, two Air-France pilots were suspended after a physical altercation in the cockpit.
The cabin crew was forced to break up the fight and one pilot remained on the flight deck for 75 minutes of the trip.