Doofus of the Day

Post title shamelessly stolen from Peter.  "Bored" RAF Pilot sent 187 passengers into a nose dive while playing with his camera:

A bored RAF pilot flying nearly 200 service personnel to Afghanistan sent his passenger jet into a nosedive when a camera he had been playing with jammed the flight controls, a court martial heard.

As the Voyager aircraft plummeted 4,400ft in seconds, passengers were pinned to the ceiling and left thinking they were going to die.

But after Flt Lt Andrew Townshend regained control of the 197ft wingspan aircraft, he allegedly lied in both a technical log and service inquiry and insisted the incident had been caused by a technical fault.

It seems that a number of passengers were injured by flying cargo while they were pinned to the airliner's ceiling.  The co-pilot (who was not in the cockpit at the time) suffered a fractured back.

Flt Lt Townshend is being Court-Marshalled for making the false log entries.  Even though Townshend is certified on Airbus equipment, I rather doubt that he has a promising career waiting for him in commercial aviation after this.