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Contrary to in-flight incidents, the cockpit crew could be changed after an aborted take-off.

Are there any rules (either national regulations or internal rules of some airlines) prescribing airline pilots to be replaced after an aborted take-off ?

Airline pilots are very professional, but we are all human beings. Putting myself in the pilot's shoes: If the take-off was abandoned due to a pilot error leading to a potentially deadly situation (such as a take-off misconfiguration), I would be so shaken by the thought that I could have killed my passengers, that I would not be able to concentrate on a subsequent take-off attempt. This creates a dangerous situation for the subsequent take-off attempt.

Of course pilots can always voluntarily declare themselves unfit to fly. But they are also under commercial pressure to perform the flights. Therefore I am asking if there are any rules preventing this sort of dangerous situation ? If not, what happens in practice ?

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Short answer: No. If making a mistake leaves you so rattled you can't continue to do your job, you really can't be a commercial pilot. Forget a rejected take-off, what happens if you have to go-around on landing because you seriously messed up something? Are you going to just walk out of the cockpit and go "Nope, somebody else do it"? Sorry, buddy -- you're still it! Taking that thought the other direction, if you have the fortitude to deal with an aborted landing, then you have the necessary fortitude to just go back and try again after an aborted takeoff. Handling emergencies, whether self-inflicted or not, is part of the job and something pilots train extensively for.

Generally, there isn't a crew change if the plane is still capable of completing its flight. A high-speed RTO could potentially damage the gear (brake overheats, etc) and require returning to the stand for safety checks, possibly even debarking the passengers if they blew a tire or something serious is damaged, but just for a pilot feeling bad about messing up? No.

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    $\begingroup$ No -- the point is that a pilot who gets so rattled by a mistake that they want to give up for the day is going to be instantly fired because they're a huge safety risk, because 90+% of pilot-rattling events happen in the air. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 15 at 1:15
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    $\begingroup$ This answer is a bunch of conjecture. "Even if the crew or airline wanted to swap pilots, there really isn't anyone to take over." Wrong. They absolutely do, called reserve. It doesn't take anything serious for reserve crews to be called to duty, it routinely happens when the previous leg is cancelled or severely delayed. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 16 at 17:58
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    $\begingroup$ Your extra 20 minute delay puts the crew over duty time requirements? Swap in a reserve crew. Ultimately, if there's a serious mistake or incident, the crew needs to call the Duty Captain at Ops (who also hears from the dispatcher), and they will make the decision whether to swap a crew or take the crew off flight status. Ultimately, the issue ends up at a Chief Pilot/Chief Fleet Pilot (as per FAR 119.65) who will ultimately decide whether a talk, retraining, and/or disciplinary action up to firing is warranted. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 16 at 18:09
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    $\begingroup$ I'll remove the statement that there isn't ANYONE to take over, I knew what I meant but I can see that without a lot of hedging it's not a true statement. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 16 at 20:33
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    $\begingroup$ Yes, there is always someone who can take over...eventually. It might be 15 minutes or it might be 24 hours depending on the situation, but of course the aircraft won't be stranded forever. But the point is that one of a pilot's duties is to determine whether they are fit to fly. There are some situations (such as exceeding duty hours, alcohol consumption, various medical conditions) where regulations set a minimum standard, but beyond that, whether someone is emotionally fit to fly is a matter of professional judgement for the pilot and airline leadership, not blanket rules. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 17 at 5:01
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Answer by Darth Psudonym covers the business aspects here.

There are also some human factor/psychological factors in play for which there are no good answers.

If an aircraft part (pilot) does not perform as expected (aborts takeoff) it would be desirable to remove that part for inspection and testing before returning to service.

However treating people like mechanical parts is generally a terrible idea, because human brains are weird. So there are a number of trade offs to be made between ideal mechanical practice and best management of people.

Humans generally treat being swapped out as a 'failure' even when they intellectually understand the reason being sensible (see various flavors of football and team racing). Situation is worse when the reason for being off task is overtly 'maybe you are not good enough to keep this job'.

One of the things you do not want in safety critical environments is hesitation when faced with 'this does not feel right' from none technical concerns about being benched/reviewed/fired.

Further there is at least a perception that post an emotive event it is often best to send someone straight back out 'to get back on the horse'. Personal observation is that where safe to do so, letting people get back to work and prove they can do the task straight away is better than benching them to stew over both the event AND the risk of being fired, which is not a healthy place to leave someone.

It is worth noting that sending people straight back out can also be 100% the wrong thing to do. Viewpoints/data from those responsible for training and assessing carrier pilots might be relevant here.

It would seem for most aborted takeoffs, even those where a pilot error was identified letting the same crew sort themselves out and complete the planned flights is better than a policy of automatic replacement causing issues for crews that do abort, and tendency to incorrectly push on in those that do not.

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