Letter to the FAA from the authors of Grounded and Angle of Attack

WHY CAPTAIN CHESLEY SULLENBERGER SHOULD REPLACE FAA ADMINISTRATOR STEVE DICKSON

By Roger Rapoport and Captain Shem Malmquist

Dear Pete Buttigieg,

Congratulations on your nomination to replace Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s wife Elaine Chao as Secretary of Transportation. We suggest the first order of business for you and President-elect Biden should be to ask FAA Administrator Steve Dickson to submit his resignation.

Confirmed for a five-year appointment last year in an unusually contentious Senate debate focused on ethical and legal questions, he has been widely criticized for his handling of the 737 MAX and Covid-19 challenges. Your decision is critical to both the health and safety of the traveling public. His vital agency is at a critical juncture and will benefit from new leadership.

On the day of your nomination total air travelers checking in for flights in the United States was 552,024, about a quarter of the same number last year. Two problems stand out.

First the airlines and the industries that depend on them are in dire financial straits because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Big layoffs triggered by billions in losses continue.

At the same time more than 1,000 of 1,600 people responding to a June National Public Radio questionnaire said they wouldn’t fly on the 737 MAX, which Chao and Dickson ungrounded last month. As a frequent flyer perhaps you share their concern.

Under the White House leadership of collapsed Trump Shuttle’s former CEO, the proud American aviation industry has been badly tarnished. The FAA’s response to the Boeing 737 crisis and Covid-19 has been a disappointment. At the same time the Centers for Disease Control asks Americans to stay home to curb the pandemic, Chao and Dickson refused to take the critical steps necessary to protect passengers and airline workers. Instead they both tacitly encourage passengers to continue flying discretionary trips during the holidays, despite the risk of spreading Covid-19 on their journeys.

The FAA’s lame duck decision allows our airlines to resume commercial MAX service with a Miami-LaGuardia American roundtrip December 29. We question this decision to put the troubled plane back in the air so quickly. A key concern is the fact that Dickson, the FAA and Boeing are refusing to reply to questions that should have been answered long before the MAX was ungrounded.

Questions we have posed focus on lessons learned from the MAX and other aviation disasters worldwide, such as failed probability estimates, common cause anomalies, radio frequency interference, radome damage (the shell protecting the radar antenna), the parameters of horizontal stabilizer testing, unusual events where the stabilizer is dangerously stuck and emergency procedures. Any of these issues could potentially be cause for concern with the recertified MAX.

Another major reason why Dickson should resign early in his term is his failed attempt to cover up employee harassment while a senior executive at Delta. Here are the details: After Barack Obama’s FAA Administrator Michael Huerta resigned in 2018, President Trump lobbied hard for appointment of his personal pilot, John Dunkin. During this year and a half White House struggle with Congress, Daniel Elwell served as acting administrator.

The FAA and the DOT rushed through certification of he Boeing 737 MAX in March 2017, a move that helped this aircraft become the fastest selling passenger jet in aviation history. The public and Congress didn’t know that the aircraft was dogged by many major concerns quietly voiced by test pilots, engineers and other experts as it began taking to the skies. Concerned pilots made an unsuccessful case for simulator training.

Boeing believed this necessary training would lead to delays and lost sales to competitor Airbus. The company promised Southwest a $280 million rebate ($1 million per plane) if the FAA unexpectedly mandated simulator training the manufacturer argued was unnecessary.

On October 29, 2018, a MAX flown by the plane’s lead operator, Lion Air, crashed in Indonesia taking the lives of 189 people. The FAA, under Secretary Chao and Acting Administrator Elwell’s leadership, subsequently rejected requests from pilot groups to initiate MAX simulator training.

On March 10, 2019, an Ethiopian Air MAX took off from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport and began climbing to cruise altitude. No one on board realized that shortly before Christmas FAA analysts reviewing the preliminary accident analysis of the first MAX crash predicted “as many as 15 future fatal crashes.”

The day after that plane crashed, robbing the world of 157 people, including Ralph Nader’s grandniece Samya Stumo, 737 MAX aircraft began disappearing from the skies worldwide. The last country to ground the plane was the United States

Fast forward to the summer of 2019 when President Trump finally caved on his personal choice for FAA Administrator. He nominated Delta executive Steve Dickson who had represented the airline in regulatory matters with the FAA.

Reviewing the Trump/Chao nominee, Senate Commerce Science and Transportation Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-WA) discovered a key conflict of interest missed in the vetting process at the White House and the Department of Transportation. During the previous three years Delta Senior Vice President Dickson had been at the center of an ongoing whistleblower case filed by a veteran Delta Pilot Karlene Petitt. One of her documented allegations had already prompted the FAA to revise a key safety requirement for the entire industry. Others were at the center of her whistleblower lawsuit on appeal at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). At the confirmation hearing Cantwell said:

“Information brought to our committee in recent weeks calls into question the safety culture that existed under Mr. Dickson that allowed a safety whistleblower to be retaliated against. The nominee’s lack of candor about the issue was also troubling.

“I recently met with a Delta Air Lines pilot, First Officer Karlene Petitt, who has been flying for 40 years. Petitt told me she had repeatedly raised concerns about the safety culture at Delta to a number of executives, including Mr. Dickson. Instead of being celebrated for her potentially life-saving diligence, Petitt was sent for a compulsory mental health examination with a company-approved psychiatrist who incorrectly diagnosed her with bipolar disorder. This... cost her 18 months of flying. “

Mr. Dickson described the decision to refer First Officer Petitt for a compulsory mental health examination as ‘sound.’ In the course of following up on First Officer Petitt’s allegations, Mr. Dickson has... repeatedly sought to minimize his role in this extremely troubling episode. However, the written record... contradicts the picture Mr. Dickson has sought to paint of minimal involvement.

“Given the urgent need for stronger safety culture and transparency throughout the FAA, these incidents do not paint the picture of the type of leadership that we need. Mr. Dickson’s oversight of these matters raises serious questions about his leadership, and therefore I will not support his nomination.

Petitt’s concerns about “inadequate pilot training and not enough pilot rest were things that you thought would have maybe gotten her recognized,” said Cantwell. “Instead she came under scrutiny and faced inappropriate questions from the psychiatrist brought in by Delta.

“For example, the doctor cited that just because Officer Petitt had three kids, a job, and helped her husband with his career, she must be manic. The psychiatrist even had the nerve... to ask when the first officer was breast-pumping milk for her children (three decades earlier).”

“According to a hearing transcript, the psychiatrist said: ‘I asked her—and she was very upset about this—I asked: ‘Did you express the milk,’ because that’s going to take more time. So, basically, she’s doing all of this—I think that’s well beyond what any woman I’ve ever met could do.’ ”

Cantwell rejected Dickson’s claim that he was not a party to Petitt’s review by Delta hired Skokie, Illinois psychiatrist Dr. David Altman: “It’s very clear that Mr. Dickson … was involved with this pilot, did know what was happening and failed to disclose it to this committee. We certainly can’t have organizations threaten pilots with this kind of retaliation.”

After reviewing Petitt’s case another medical expert at the Mayo Clinic, concluded:

“This has been a puzzle for our group—the evidence does not support presence of a psychiatric diagnosis but does support an organizational/corporate effort to remove this pilot from the rolls.”

Dickson defended his former employer’s decision to pay $74,000 to Dr. David Altman, the Illinois psychiatrist who concluded in his report that Petitt was “bipolar” and unfit to fly for Delta.

“We’ve never had a partisan vote on an FAA nominee in the past, and I believe that we should have found consensus on a nominee for the FAA, given all of the concerns the public has about flying safety,” responded Senator Cantwell.

Voting against Dickson, she added, “will help us create an environment where whistleblowers will be listened to.”

Her view was seconded by “Miracle on The Hudson” Captain Chesley Sullenberger: “This nominee while a senior executive at Delta Air Lines either caused or allowed a whistleblower with validated safety concerns to be retaliated against. Especially now with the safety of the 737 MAX under review, it is critically important that we have an FAA Administrator who will act with integrity and independence to protect everyone who flies. I strongly oppose his nomination.”

The Republican dominated committee advanced Dickson’s nomination to the Senate July 10, 2019, on a straight 14-12 party line vote. He was spared a contentious floor debate later that month thanks to cloture invoked by a Delta Political Action Committee favorite Senator Mitch McConnell. Dickson was confirmed by a party line full Senate vote of 52-40. Seven Democrats campaigning for the Presidency were absent from the roll call.

After being reinstated and returning to duty as a Delta pilot, Petitt, licensed to fly nine commercial aircraft, continues working on the appeal of her OSHA whistleblower case. Petitt also filed a complaint with the Illinois State Medical Disciplinary Board against Dr. Altman who labeled her bipolar.

In response to these complaints, a confidential consent decree with Dr. Altman was approved by the Disciplinary Board on August 5, 2020. According to the department’s Medical Prosecution Unit the result was a “permanent inactive license” for Dr. Altman. This “formal punitive public action” means that he no longer practices medicine in the state and his lawyer adds that the psychiatrist is considering retirement.

We believe restoring confidence in the safety of air travel depends on appointing a new FAA administrator at your earliest convenience. Our nation needs a well-respected expert with international stature, someone like Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has told the truth in the face of science deniers again and again.

We can think of no better choice than Chesley Sullenberger, a tireless advocate for aviation safety. In the years since his famous landing on the Hudson, he has courageously spoken out on issues critical to the future of this critical American industry.

All who travel by air or earn their living serving the flying public will benefit from his honesty, passion for technical excellence and belief that a well-trained pilot is central to air safety. You and the rest of us would be lucky to have him as the nation’s FAA Administrator.

Sincerely,
Captain Shem Malmquist, Roger Rapoport

Authors of the upcoming Grounded: How to solve the aviation crisis and the acclaimed Angle of Attack, to order visit our shop here.