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When two individuals have a clash of the minds and disagreement, rarely does the discussion lead to fisticuffs and when it does, you don’t want it to be occurring within the cockpit of an aircraft. Unfortunately, passengers on an Air France, Geneva-Paris flight (a short hop), had a fight break out in the cockpit of their flight between the pilot and first officer.
The incident occurred in June and is seeing the light of day due to French investigators releasing a report which called for tougher safety protocols by the airline.
The duo apparently got into a heated dispute right after take-off from Geneva and did the collar-grab and punch-your-lights-out routine inside the tight cabin. A member of the cabin crew was able to intervene (it wasn’t revealed how the cabin crew member was able to get into the cockpit, perhaps one of the pilots opened the door) and sat in the cockpit for the duration of the flight.
Air France advises that the two pilots were suspended.
While rare, incidents between crew members in flight do occur.
For example in 2018, two Jet Airways pilots got into a tussle inside the cockpit on a London to Mumbai long-haul flight. The airline fired both pilots. While the airline did not provide details, the Times of India did some sleuthing and discovered that the male pilot slapped the female pilot mid-flight. The female pilot exited the cockpit and refused to return (rightly so). The male pilot then made matters worse, he left the controls of the plane unmanned to try and talk the female pilot to return to the cockpit, she basically told him to pound sand. Thus on two occasions, there was no one in the cockpit flying the plane during the London-to-Mumbai flight.
In 2015, also in India, two pilots on an Air India flight had a disagreement before takeoff and began punching each other. They were removed from the flight and Air India spokesperson at the time note, that the “commander and co-pilot - have been derostered pending investigation.”
In 2016, a similar incident occurred on an Asiana flight about to depart from Incheon, South Korea to New York. The two pilots had a disagreement and engaged in battle of the fists. Paramedics were called to the scene as one of the pilots suffered a wound requiring hospitalization.
