Wow that’s just awful, hadn’t heard about that. It’s been years and the FAA investigation appears to either be ongoing or silently killed? Hope they’re still working on it.

Also I wasn't saying Delta is an angel obviously, it’s an airline. They suck too, especially recently. I don’t want to defend them at all and, if I could choose, I’d dissolve the whole company and start anew to make a better airline.

That said, Delta didn’t direct their pilots to do that, it could have been any of them. Same with the doctor beating incident. But United’s vile CEO vehemently defended the beating and tried to paint the victim as deserving, while I haven’t seen any indications that Delta’s corporate leadership tried to back up their idiotic pilots. United feels toxic, which is a shame because I also have status with them from a partnering company. Whereas Delta simply feels like garbage, though it may be because I missed all the bad news about them.

I’m not downplaying it— Flight 89 caused far more damage than the doctor beating or some lost baggage. It’s easily the worst of any airline scandal I can think of. Just feels like it was luck that Delta hired those pilots when they could have been on any plane, and the CEO didn’t go around saying “the schoolchildren were belligerent and the crew followed procedure”.