Australian flag carrier Qantas grounded two pilots who argued inside the cockpit of a Boeing 747 at the Dallas-Forth Worth International Airport. Their debate was over take-off calculations which they should enter into the plane's computer.

The incident actually happened Tuesday night (U.S. time) last week, but was reported by Fairfax Media only Tuesday morning this week. It involved a captain and a second officer.

The hot heads could have been caused by pilot fatigue since reports said that the two were almost near their 20-hour duty limits. They ended up not flying at all since flight operations managers grounded the jumbo jet overnight which delayed the plane's departure for 18 hours.

Qantas stressed the plane grounding was due to the bad weather as a major thunderstorm hit Dallas on the same night and the approach of the 20-hour duty limits of the two, but due to their argument the air carrier initiated a probe on the incident which led to the grounding of the pilots until the investigation is completed.

Qantas had to bring in replacement pilots to fly to Sydney via Brisbane on Wednesday morning the 320 passengers aboard flight QF8. The route covers 13,816 kilometres, one of the longest non-stop routes in the world and the longest flown by 747 jumbos.

A few weeks ago, Qantas also stood down a captain because of a positive alcohol reading. Of course, the bigger grounding story for Qantas was when Chief Executive Alan Joyce resorted to that drastic measure in October 2011 as his way of addressing the long-standing labour row that Qantas had with unions which led to massive financial loss for the flag carrier and the labour disputed submitted to Fair Work Australia for arbitration.

RELATED STORIES