I'm not sure of ATC's rules, but my assumption is that they would NOT clear me for an ILS approach in this circumstance. But that's moot, I would not ask for it because it's not authorized anyway. It would be a visual approach, we'd just happen to fly the ILS course and use the GS for vertical guidance.

In our operation, departing to an airport with missing weather reports would not be permitted, so in a Part 121 scheduled service this flight may not have been able to dispatch legally.

Airliners have DME/DME triangulation which allows them to achieve area navigation (RNAV) without GPS. The interference would have precluded a GPS approach but may have left the GPWS ("Terrain! Terrain!") alerts unaffected.

In this case the ILS was not available, but only because the local altimeter setting was not available. In this case I could accept a visual approach, but use the ILS to provide lateral and vertical guidance towards the runway.

There are many things I have learned about flying from years at the airlines that I would have had to learn the hard way at a Part 135 or Part 91 operation. One of those things would have been when to say "no".

Take the airplane to a mountainous airport with missing weather reports at night with NOTAM'd GPS interference? No.

Do a visual approach on a moonless night with no GPS for terrain awareness? No. Fly the ILS even if it's NOTAM'd out.

Our training is to treat even vague threats seriously.

The bluetooth device's name was BOMB. We're trained to treat even vague threats seriously.

The captain in this case is in a terrible situation. Do nothing, get pilloried for not taking action. Turn around, get pilloried for that.

I hope I'm never in this position because there are really no good options. All of you making comments have not been in this position, and were not there at the time with the information the captain had access to, and so are not in a position to judge the decision.

The First Amendment only prevents the government from penalizing your speech. It doesn't stop a private company (airline) kicking you off an airplane for something you said or did.

The PIC (Pilot In Command, aka Captain) is the final authority for the safe operation of the flight (14 CFR Part 91.3). If the Captain determines that a threat exists, they are empowered to do pretty much anything reasonable to deal with the threat. Turning the plane around and landing is certainly in the realm of "reasonable".

Whether you or somebody else who is clearly not an airline captain feel the original actions constituted a threat is pretty much irrelevant.

Signed, airline captain.

Blood test, background check including all prior training records that are reported to the FAA.

Not a lot of work for the candidate in the interview, but it's easy to fail one too many training events or accumulate a violation and become radioactive.

Nobody owes you a new release, or a signed binary, or a feature you care about.

(Source: am airline captain)

We definitely involve the dispatcher in the diversion decision. Especially if it's an unplanned diversion, where the big-picture view the dispatcher has is very useful for us in our metal tube.

All of my code was garbage of course, but it was an incredible amount of fun, a very valuable learning experience.

I miss those days, but that probably has less to do than the programming language and more to do with the carefree days. :-)

I'm an airline pilot here in the US and it would be the privilege of a lifetime to be able to do that with one of my kids.