I doubt the veracity of this account, at all. The liability from flying a malfunctioning, compromised plane is way too high for this to happen more than once.
Not an aviator, but planes can & do fly with malfunctioning noncritical components all the time. I don't know whether the PA system is considered critical or not, but it also didn't appear to be nonfunctional; the article said the pilots were able to use it & that their signal appeared to have a higher priority.
I don't know if this is true or not either, but I don't think we can reject it on it's face.
I have a friend who was a flight attendant for the oldest Mexican airline, and she indeed told me how sometimes, when there's a critical system malfunction before a flight, often managers call the pilots privately and offer a bribe to fly the plane with that malfunction. The pilot can refuse the offer without any problems or losing the job, but it's a bit scary to think that's there's corruption at that level.
Fortunately, planes are extremely robust and somehow Mexican airlines have an excellent safety record.
I was on a flight from Chicago to Raleigh a few years ago, and we were just starting to taxi out to the runway when the plane stopped and the pilot got on the PA and said something like "Sorry folks, we have a maintenance indicator (kind of like a 'check engine' light) that has come on. We have to go back to the terminal and get maintenance to check things out."
So we go back to the terminal, wait approximately 3 times longer than the expected lifetime of the universe (OK, that part might be an embellishment, but it felt like it at the time. The rest of this story is true though). Anyway, after a bit the pilot comes back on the PA and says something approximately like:
"OK folks, a $FRIZGIBBIT on this plane is broken. Thankfully these planes have two $FRIZGIBBITs and are certified to fly with just one working, so we're going to go ahead and get underway and get you all to Raleigh."
And that's just what they did. Frankly I was a bit nervous about the whole thing. I don't know what the hell a $FRIZGIBBIT is or what it does, and they say it's OK to fly with just one, but the way I figure it, somebody decided to put two in the first place for a reason. What if the remaining one breaks mid-flight??
Anyway, it all worked out in the end, or I wouldn't be here to tell this story, but the point is, planes do apparently fly on occasion with broken something-or-others.
My mother was a flight attendant on a flight where they thought the front landing gear didn’t come down. There were three independent systems on an L-1011 to detect this and all three agreed that the landing gear failed to extend. They did a tower flyby, and the tower said the wheels were down, so they operated under the assumption it wasn’t locked into place. The plane circled for a long time while emergency crews foamed the runway and positioned themselves for an emergency landing.
It turns out that all three independent systems malfunctioned and the landing gear was fine.
Since 9/11 and armored & locked cockpit doors, surely planes would be able to withstand pandemonium in the cabin and still land safely?
Also, in the video linked in the blog post there doesn't seem to be much panic visible at all. I bet most people are laughing their asses off once the initial confusion is over.
