A veteran Australian aircraft engineer has been awarded AU$40,000 (US$28,044) in compensation after being sacked following a 17-minute delay to a Singapore Airlines flight that he was said to have caused by powering down the aircraft to clear fault messages. The man's employer was Heston MRO, which provides maintenance services to carriers such as Singapore Airlines. However, Singapore Airlines expressed its dissatisfaction at the incident, arguing that the engineer had breached protocol and acted on instinct. Though the incident only delayed the flight by 17 minutes, Singapore Airlines argued that it had resulted in "customer dissatisfaction." Australia Is An Important Destination For Singapore AirlinesSome interesting background to this story is the fact that Singapore Airlines' presence in Australia is, by most metrics, huge.