An airline pilot with decades of experience says she was fired from a New Jersey aviation company after she reported safety concerns to the Federal Aviation Administration, according to a lawsuit.based in Morristown, for about a year before she was unlawfully terminated on Sept. 1, 2022, according to allegations contained in court documents.
Mincey, 67, has more than 25 years of flying experience, and worked for two decades as a commercial pilot who flew Boeing 747 aircrafts on international routes with no accidents or regulatory violations, according to the lawsuit Mincey’s troubles with the company began on Nov. 5, 2021, when she was assigned to fly second-in-command with a captain who told her not to touch the aircraft controls.
Mincey later complained to a chief pilot about the incident, pointing out that it was unsafe to prohibit qualified pilots from manipulating the controls and making landings, the suit says. Her complaints included a captain she flew with to Mexico who missed an approach to the airport, flying off a prescribed route and allegedly “jeopardized the safety of the flight, the paying passengers, and the crew, although it did conclude in a safe landing,” the suit says.
The lawsuit claims that on one occasion, the captain’s failure to use the device caused the crew to “lose situational awareness,” and that the captain falsely blamed Mincey in reports he made to company managers, the FAA, and in a report to NASA, the suit alleges.