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Upside Down in Toronto, Is Flying Still Safe?
Airplane crashes are getting a lot of press, is flying still safe? Has something changed recently? We had the recent collision of a helicopter and airliner in D.C., followed rather quickly by an upside down Delta regional airliner in the Toronto crash.
Is flying still safe? Should you be worried the next time you strap your pink-crunchy body into an aluminum tube to go fast?
Maybe?
A Big Warning About This Topic
When asking is flying is still safe after a recent traumatic video of the Toronto crash, there is a big caution to keep in mind.
First, the accident rate of the major airlines has been pretty darn close to zero for a long while. Statistically you are way more likely to die in your daily car driving than on an airliner.
But in this environment of apparent carnage that is suddenly in your face, it strikes fear in the heart of the traveller. As mentioned in another article (click here to read the implications of the collision over D.C.) the media loves any sort of attention getting fear-porn that ups their ratings.
So I would urge calm for the moment, and offer the following in a spirit of humility, because as an airline pilot for a major cargo airline (that’s me in the picture as the Captain on the right)–I have long had a concern about a particular trend I have witnessed.
That trend is nothing recent, but it has accelerated in the past decade or so. Yes, I believe flying is still safe, but we have some work to do to keep it that way.
Trend 1: Pilot Brain and Skill Rot
I grew up with pilots who flew what I call “Iron jets.” These were high-performance large aircraft that by today’s standards had very primitive instrumentation and autopilots.
As a new military pilot flying C-130s, I would fly with these guys and just be stunned. Many of this generation had gotten their wings during the Vietnam war and flew these incredibly performing aircraft in combat, off and onto aircraft carriers sometimes, and through horrible tropical weather–nearly entirely through their hands-on flying abilities and airmanship.
Airmanship encompasses the sum total of the knowledge a pilot has of regulations, aircraft performance and systems, weather savvy, and it is all combined with their intense, hands-on flying, experience.
When these guys flew by hand (which was frequently), the airplane acted as though it were on rails. I thought as a young guy I was pretty good, but these guys consistently humbled me. Maybe I was “pretty good.” But these guys didn’t fly the airplane, the airplane was an extension of them. The pilot and airplane were wired together as one!
Fast forward to today.
Automated systems such as autopilots and navigation computers are fantastic. Newer autopilots and auto throttles tied into the navigation systems can water your eyes in how well they fly the airplane. It is truly amazing.
Until it isn’t.
This is the trend on pilot brain and skill rot concerns me when we ask the question “is flying still safe?” While I encourage my copilots to hand fly without the automation, few are willing or desirous to even try.
A survey a few years ago showed the average professional airline pilot only “flew” the airplane about 3 minutes per flight.
Someone at church asked me if that were true.
I said, “Not really, it’s far worse.”
About Those Three Minutes…
There is a problem in those three minutes–most pilots are not really flying.
What happens is, on approach to landing for instance, they use the autopilot and autothrottles to get the airplane all the way on a straight final with the speed stabilized. Then, at around 1,500 feet above the ground, they click the autopilot off (while leaving the flight director, which gives cues on how to move the plane around) and leave the auto throttles on. They then heard the airplane down final to a contact with the ground.
During this phase of approach there are a multitude of airspeed and power changes that must be “trimmed” out. Some of the newer and more automated aircraft do this for you even if you are hand flying–but some do not.
Mine doesn’t. When you pull the power back, the nose drops a bit. When you put out the flaps, the nose pitches up.
In the days of the iron jets, the pilots knew this all so well that it was part of their muscle memory. The airplane stayed stable and was flown beautifully because the proficiency of the pilot was so high.
Today, it is often alarming to see how poorly an airplane is flown if the automation is suddenly turned off.
The end result of brain and skill rot is that instead of having professional pilots, we have automation managers in the cockpit. These are people who are basically a step above a passenger–but if the automation fails, some serious trouble is possible.
This is way too common now. Pilots who aren’t piloting is becoming the norm. Too many pilots are riding the airplane while wearing a pilot’s uniform.
Trend 2: Long-term Harm from DEI Hiring
I detail this problem in my book Superhero: Being Who God Says You Are. The short story is that when I was in Air Force pilot training more than three-decades ago–the military was under very strong pressure to qualify more women and minorities as pilots.
At the time, it was, as I share in my book Superhero, a very stark contrast between the standards applied to us pasty-faced white boys and the women and minorities.
On assignment night when you find out what airplane you are going to fly, they called one of our female pilots up to get her airplane. I heard two of the instructors beside me snicker and ask, “How did she make it through?”
I leaned over and said, “Because you guys passed her!’
It wasn’t necessarily their fault, there was an understanding that we had to graduate a certain number of women and minorities–no matter what. So the standards were not truly enforced. An unusual amount of extra training was given to the special category people, and then if they got even close to that standard, they were passed on.
Here’s the deal. Flying is a life and death critical skill. No one that I knew in authority in the military cared about your sex or whether you had recessive or dominant genetic expression of melanin. (that’d be skin color, not race. Race does not exist)
What should have mattered was one thing.
Can you do the job competently and safely?
But significant numbers of women and minorities were given the “wink-wink” here’s your wings, good job” treatment, even though they could not do the job.
The Long-Term impact of DEI Hiring
It wasn’t called DEI at the time, it was called “Equal Opportunity.” Of course as you can see, it was absolutely unequal. White males had to meet a higher standard than others.
But what is even worse than letting people not really meet the standards to be a pilot was this.
What I suspected would happen has happened.
Over time, we did not insist on bringing women and minorities up to the high standards of the past.
We instead slouched down to the inadequately low standards of equal opportunity, so that now everyone can suck the same.
It is becoming increasingly shocking to fly with some younger pilots. To be honest, if you took the automation away, I doubt they could consistently fly to Private Pilot standards, much less Airline Transport Pilot (the rating required to be an airline pilot) standards.
Is Flying Still Safe? Pilots
Once again, looking at the crash in Toronto, the investigation is just starting. We do not know for sure what happened, and so it is very unwise to speculate. I wasn’t in that cockpit, and neither were you.
What appears to happen is perhaps this.
I must stress this is totally from watching the available videos and just knowing the general inabilities of many current pilots to actually fly large aircraft.
It appears someone not too proficient or competent in actually flying (as opposed to managing the automation) the airplane goes into what is pretty normal weather for professional pilots, and in their discomfort the crew flies the airplane onto the ground and breaks it. There is no apparent round-out maneuver (called the “flare”), the descent rate appears too high, and the wing breaks off.
The wind was not excessive, but may have been beyond the capability of the autopilots for an auto land.
It should not have been anywhere near a problem for a profession airline pilot who has developed and maintained their flying skills.
In answering Is flying still safe I would say “yes,” but we are becoming way too dependent on automated systems. If those systems fail, or the weather does not permit their use, safety will be compromised.
Is Flying Still Safe? The FAA
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) weighed in on this in a big way in November of 2022. They issued a non-regulatory advisory called Flightpath Management. It was in response to “vulnerabilities in flightcrew management of automation and situation awareness.” (AC: 120-123, 11/21/22)
I sarcastically say it should have been titled “Be a dang pilot, y’all.”
This document notes, as to my concerns:
Analysis of operational, accident, and incident data show that degradation of pilot skills in [Manual flight Operations] has been identified as a potential vulnerability in successful [Flight Path Management]…Proficiency in [Manual Flight Operations] is necessary for safe flight operations, regardless of auto flight equipment installed, or used, in the aircraft. (AC:120-123, 3.1.4)
“Manual Flight Operations” is flying the airplane and throttles (speed control) by hand. That’s being a pilot. Be a dang pilot, y’all!
They saw the same thing I saw coming. They, in a sense, are on it. There are some good people at the FAA.
But just like my experience with the military, there have been political pressures to hire to meet a political ideology within the FAA.
The FAA was rated a few years ago as the most diverse federal agency–and that, in the case of aviation, is simply not good.
You see, the majority of highly experienced professionals in aviation are white males. It’s just a matter of who is interested, not any discrimination against any other group.
Therefore the FAA having the highest number of women and minorities in top positions means that people were hired in spite of their lack of qualifications. They are not bad people, just incompetent.
In flying, incompetence kills.
Sex, gender, “race” (which as I said, is a false concept), or any other ideological category does not matter in aviation. What matters is professional competence.
When aviation professionals lacks competence, people die.
Is flying still safe? At this point, I would still say yes.
What Needs to Be Done?
We have work to do. Flying could become unsafe if we do not have the moral courage to look at the political impact of a foolish and false ideology (DEI, Equal Opportunity) and clean house of the impact of it.
We cannot afford to trust automation entirely to keep the flying public safe while there are two people sitting at the controls who may or may not actually be proficient and competent at flying. The melanin content of their skin, their sex, or what they think they identify as does not matter–what does matter is your ability to do the job to a high level of excellence, consistently.
We need to stop being afraid of being called names or losing jobs (much of my info about the FAA as well as some info from aircraft manufactures come from people who cannot afford to lose their jobs if they go public with DEI issues) by just speaking the truth.
There is no room for anyone in aviation to be hired at any level for any reason other than that they are excellent at what they do.
I have enjoyed flying aircraft privately, in the military, and at an airline for my entire adult life. I love it. But it is a deadly serious responsibility. You don’t become a pilot for reasons of maintaining equality or equity. You must be able to do the job excellently.
Is Flying Still Safe?
Flying is a life and death business…that’s it.
If the answer to “Is Flying Still Safe” is going to remain “yes,” it is up to us.
I fly on the passenger carriers normally several times per month, and I am unconcerned about my safety, for some reasons mentioned in this article relating to our status with God.
Quite frankly, it’s the politicians who profit from the so-called racial and gender divides they create–the rest of us just see people, not categories of people.
That’s called respecting the image of God in everyone.
Let’s live this…Stevo out…
(Image by Stevo)
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