162829 Likes 318 Dislikes 0 Published August 24, 2008, 3:10 pmOn arrival in Hong Kong Wilkinson was congratulated and celebrated the arrival with airline executives. He even got a mention in the airline newsletter, with an accompanying picture of the executives raising a glass in celebration of the maiden flight. The flypast was, for all intensive purposes, considered to be 'standard' procedure, and appears to have been something that was conducted as a matter of course when taking deliveries of new aircraft.
As a result of this 'stunt', Wilkinson, who was at the time the Cathay 777 fleet manager, was sacked from his high paying job, and Wilkinson's first officer Middleton was also suspended from training duties for six months. What happened between the bit where the pilot was praised, and where the pilot was sacked seems to be a little bit of a blur!
It is suggested that the video itself was responsible for making information available to local authorities, which in turn forced Cathay into taking their own action.
