A senior Aer Lingus manager who ordered that one of the airline’s captains be stripped of his rank and barred from working as an instructor says he felt “cheated” when he heard a rumour the pilot was delivering training for a rival carrier in Britain.
The witness told the Workplace Relations Commission that he stood over his findings and that he favoured the explanation that the incident which led to the pilot’s demotion was best explained by crew mis-selection while entering settings into the flight computer.
The complainant pilot, Declan McCabe, is pursuing complaints under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, and the Payment of Wages Act 1991 against Aer Lingus Ltd over his demotion from captain to first officer in 2024.
Mr McCabe disputes the company’s view that he was obliged to file a safety report after the Airbus A321xlr he was flying into Dublin Airport on 8 June, 2023 failed to link up with a radio navigation beacon for the new north runway.
Giving evidence, Captain Eamon Kierans, the former chief pilot for Aer Lingus’s UK operation, gave evidence that the conclusion of his disciplinary investigation was that Mr McCabe’s aircraft was “flying in the wrong direction… until air traffic control intervened” on the day.
Mr McCabe said in his own evidence last year he and his first officer had already started their turn back to re-aquire the beacon before the radio call from air traffic control, and says it was within his authority to decide no safety report was warranted on the day.
There is dispute about the most likely reason for 8 June 2023 event, which was ultimately determined to be a “low severity” occurrence.
Captain Kierans was critical of what he said was Mr McCabe’s “rejection of internal safety management systems” and his “refusal to engage with internal persons whilst reporting inaccurate or irrelevant information to Air Nav Ireland”, the tribunal heard.
He considered it “misconduct of a serious nature”, deciding Mr McCabe was to be demoted from training captain to first officer with “no prospect of returning to an instructor pilot role”.
Captain McCabe disputes the disciplinary findings and claims he was being targeted for whistleblowing linked to an earlier dispute involving the flight operations safety officer, Captain Colm Wynne, whom Mr McCabe says chaired a disciplinary process which demoted him in 2011, before the sanction was reduced to a final written warning on appeal.
Mr Kierans’ evidence was that he favoured the explanation arrived at by the airline’s director of safety and security, Conor Nolan, that the incident was best explained by crew mis-selection while entering settings into the flight computer.
“My view, then and now, is that the aeroplane was set up to make an approach onto runway 10R, and during the radar vectoring procedure, the crew became aware and turned the aircraft to make an approach onto runway 10L,” Captain Kierans said. “That was my opinion then, and still is.”
He confirmed to counsel for Aer Lingus, Tom Mallon BL, that he stood over his findings and the disciplinary sanction “absolutely”.
Mr McCabe was served with his demotion on 1 January 2024 and spent time out of work due to sick leave, the tribunal has heard.
Under cross-examination today, Capt Kierans was questioned on an email of 13 May 2025 to an EasyJet employee in which he wrote: “I’m interested to know if Captain Declan McCabe might be delivering training in the UK… some here think he might be working for EasyJet.”
Mr Kierans said in answer to questioning from David Byrnes BL, for the complainant, that he could not recall from whom he had heard this, that there were “rumours about [Mr McCabe’s] presence in the training centre in Gatwick in London”.
He agreed it would have been a breach of Mr McCabe’s employment contract if he was delivering training, though he said exceptions could be made.
Mr Byrnes put it to him that the “Aer Lingus brass” wanted to know “can we get McCabe for acting in breach of his contract?”
“No, I was trying to find out if it was true,” Capt Kierans said.
Adjudicator John Harraghy said: “We’ve all heard rumours. We don’t all go to the extent of checking them out. You put pen to paper. I’m interested to know what was your intention?”
“My intention was just to find out, I felt if that was the case, what had been applied was disregarded. I was aware Captain McCabe was off-roster a period of time. If he was engaging in this, I felt cheated,” Captain Kearns said.
Mr Byrnes said: “You’re a very experienced man. Are you honestly taking in what you’re saying, that you felt cheated. You’re showing just who you are, the prejudice, the unfairness, and moreover the grudge you hold towards my client – that’s what you’re revealing. Anything to say about that?”
“No,” Captain Kierans replied.
Honest broker system
Captain Kierans had told the tribunal that in coming to his conclusions on what happened on the 8 June 2023 flight, he was relying on a document he said was prepared from information on a flight data monitoring system, or FDM.
Mr McCabe questioned the authorship of the document during internal disciplinary processes and argued the contents of an Excel file suggested the raw flight data was “tampered with internally”, the tribunal heard.
Captain Kierans rejected this assertion when it was put to him.
The complainant’s position is that an industrial agreement dating to the 1990s governing the use of FDM output requires it to be handled anonymously by an “honest broker” or “linkman”, a joint nominee agreed between the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association and Aer Lingus – but that this was not done for the 8 June 2023 flight.
Adjudicator John Harraghy asked Captain Kierans where the industrial agreement allowed the airline to “bypass the linkman”.
“It says the incidents must be investigated by the appropriate line manager and the incident sent to the head of air safety,” the witness said, then went on to say: “I agree it doesn’t spell it out 100%.”
“I don’t see it any per cent, to be honest with you,” Mr Harraghy said.
“I disagree,” Captain Kierans said.
“You’re saying it’s there, but not clear,” Mr Harraghy said.
“My evidence is that document allows that to happen,” the witness said.
