Airline captain reveals ‘perfect storm’ of factors threatening air travel safety

Walker criticized major airlines for straying from merit-based hiring and promotion, creating “unnecessary distractions” with diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, failing to properly train pilots, and failing to correctly address the shortage of qualified pilots. She said specific health conditions that transgender pilots face poses a “safety threat.”

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“We have young people without a lot of experience, they’re not very good on the stick [because] they get told not to fly [and to instead] let the automation do it,” Walker said. “Then when something goes wrong and they have to fly, they end up upside down in Toronto.”

“That’s the problem coming, and I am fearful [that] if we don’t nip this in the bud soon, you’re going to see this more and more regularly,” she added.

Cutting corners ‘coming back to bite’ the airline industry

The Washington Examiner obtained a “cheat sheet” that United Airlines distributed to pilots in January on how to land a plane successfully. Walker said the circulation of the card speaks to the lack of competence from unseasoned pilots and the lack of training from the airlines.

A 33-year international wide-body aircraft captain, Walker called the cheat sheet “insulting and embarrassing to my professionalism” and claimed that “normally, this would not be accepted” at major airlines, but with the additions and premature promotions of “many new kids … maybe this is needed.”

“The problem is purely one of massive expansion with no one in the pipeline while the companies have pushed to reduce training [costs],” she added. “Now it’s all coming back to bite them.”

Walker argued that the current age limit for pilots, at 65, is outdated. With a shortage of qualified and experienced pilots, she said raising the mandatory retirement age would allow for better and more competent people in the workforce.

She lamented that airlines are putting pilots into the air with less and less training and that the increased amount of automation involved in flying has made many newer and less experienced pilots vulnerable if the automation fails.

United Airlines, for example, allows pilots to fill a captain vacancy after just 350 hours of experience as a first officer, according to its most recent pilot agreement. 

“What used to take 8-12 years to achieve now only takes 350 hours. … At 70 hours a month, [that takes] five months,” Walker said.

She said the training process has become so expedited that some new hires have been identified as possible instructors without requisite experience: “In other words, the kindergarteners are teaching Ph.D.-level classes.”

According to Federal Aviation Administration data, the three age groups being issued the most First Class Medical Certificates are 20-24, 16-19, and 25-29, in that order.

“The pilot population is surprisingly young,” Walker said. “And with that [along with reduced  training requirements] comes the assumption that they are inexperienced.”

Retired Delta Airlines Captain Karlene Petitt told the Washington Examiner: “The level of understanding has reduced greatly in the modern programs because they teach to the test, not to understand.” 

“At Delta, there is no ground school. Delta gives pilots the answers to the tests for pilots to memorize before they show up to simulator training, and they take an electronic, multiple guess test before the simulator training,” Petitt added. “But because many still didn’t pass, they [were] allowed an open book training.”

Petitt recalled that a captain testified during her trial, which she won against Delta, that his instructor told him to “Stop asking questions, be the monkey, hit the lever, get the banana.” 

Another captain, Steve Dempsey, declared an emergency because he lost his autopilot and autothrust. “Delta identified that their pilots cannot fly, so they produced a training video telling them to declare an emergency if they lost the autopilot,” Petitt said. 

“The video served many purposes, but one certain takeaway is that we as a group are presently not prepared to fly in complex airspace with Level 0 automation,” Dempsey said in an email shared with the Washington Examiner. “Nor, might I add, are we suitably prepared to fly in complex airspace with Level 4 automation (so says ASAP.)”

Level 0 automation is a fully manual flight, and Level 4 automation is a fully automated aircraft.

However, not every airline is handling the pilot shortage the same way. Southwest Airlines, for example, recognized that the pilots they were hiring were increasingly younger and more inexperienced, and increased their standards to ensure that their pilots were better prepared.

While the time it takes for a first officer to become a captain has dropped from about eight years to roughly five years, according to a Southwest captain who requested to be anonymous for fear of retribution, the number of hours while flying with a check pilot has increased by between 40 and 100 percent.

The Southwest captain referred to the recent incident in Chicago where two planes almost collided, but the pilot of a Southwest airplane “had their heads up” and “did what they were trained to do,” ostensibly saving the lives of everyone on board both planes.

Transgender pilots have unique health factors

In addition to the lack of training at certain airlines, Walker sounded the alarm on the “safety threat” posed by many airlines’ attitude toward transgender pilots in a congressional report sent to Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Jerry Moran (R-KS), as well as Reps. Sam Graves (R-MO) and Troy Nehls (R-TX), all of whom lead the committees that oversee aviation.

Walker’s report, shared with the Washington Examiner, details the mental and physical health concerns she says are being overlooked by the industry and the FAA, such as the significantly higher rates of suicide attempts and suicidal ideation reported by transgender people, as well as the increased risk of heart attacks and strokes caused by hormone therapy.

According to recent estimates, 40% of transgender people have attempted suicide during their lifetime. By comparison, the suicide attempt rate among military veterans, who are also at higher risk for suicidal ideation, is about 0.4%.

The Washington Examiner spoke with 16 major airline pilots, 15 captains and one first officer, most of whom flew for the Navy prior to becoming airline pilots. They all voiced their concerns about sharing the cockpit with a transgender pilot due to mental health concerns.

Danny, a major airline captain who has been at the same company for over eight years, said he is “concerned” about the transgender suicide rate. “I have decided personally that I will not put myself in a situation where I am flying with someone with gender dysphoria,” he added.

Mike, an Airbus A320 captain who has been with his airline for 28 years, said he has “nothing against trans people” but he would “never leave the cockpit” if paired with a transgender first officer due to their “alarming” suicide rate.

Tom, a major airline captain of nearly 10 years, said, “As individuals, we are now forced to determine whether we are willing to accept the risk of working with [a transgender] person. If the effects, both mental and physical, have not been thoroughly studied, how can I fully understand the risk I am assuming in my professional career and the safety of my passengers?”

Kurt, a Boeing 737 captain of 38 years, said he “definitely” would not feel comfortable leaving a transgender person alone in the cockpit and cited the 2019 Atlas Air crash in Houston because it only took the pilot 20 seconds to “put the aircraft in an unrecoverable position.”

To date, no instances of a transgender pilot committing “suicide by plane” have been reported. Recent online rumors that a transgender pilot was involved in the Potomac plane crash were proven false.

Distractions in DEI aviation

In her report, Walker also pointed out numerous instances of major airlines continuing DEI policies despite President Donald Trump’s efforts to remove them from the federal government and government contractors. She argued that such policies, in addition to upending meritocracy, create unnecessary distractions that affect flight safety.

One example that she gave of an unnecessary distraction was on Jan. 11, 2023, when over 1,300 flights were cancelled and over 9,000 flights were delayed due to a failed system update that coincided with the FAA’s decision to rename “Notices to Airmen” as “Notices to Air Missions” — “solely for the purposes of gender inclusivity,” Walker said. The incident cost the industry and travelers billions, she said.

In addition, the FAA maintains strict terminology standards as pilots use a “common safety language.” Walker argues that introducing nonstandard pronouns such as they/them or having to refer to a passenger by using pronouns of the opposite sex can lead to confusion in the event of an in-flight emergency.

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“So many pilots have been called in by the chief pilot’s office for using the wrong pronoun,” Walker said. “So now I have to stop and think [about pronouns] and take critical time away from my actions, and I don’t want to worry about that at work. It’s just one more risk or threat we’re throwing into the mix.”

“I mean, flight attendants at my airline cannot even say ladies and gentlemen anymore,” she added.