I’m an active pilot. DEI is a distraction that diminishes achievements.
Originally published in the Columbus Dispatch, this is a slightly expanded version that goes into more detail. I truly appreciate the Dispatch for their willingness to include contrarian voices and headlines that help to sell newspapers.
January 29, 2025 brought news of a horrific crash between a passenger jet and an U.S. Army helicopter over the Potomac River in our nation’s capital. Everyone aboard both aircraft — 67 people — were killed in an instant.
Two and a half weeks later, another plane filled to capacity with 80 passengers and crew onboard crashed and rolled over on landing at Toronto’s Pearson airport. Miraculously, everyone survived and few were even injured.
It’s hard to understand how such things happen but facing reality is exactly what must be done to prevent them from happening again.
As an active pilot, I carefully follow aviation accident investigations and reporting. Fortunately, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the federal agency responsible for such investigations, has thus far remained focused on its job rather than partisan politics.
They’ll get to the bottom of these tragedies.
I also make it a point to avoid speculating on the cause of accidents until the NTSB has issued its reports. Politicians and news outlets would be wise to follow that same rule. If only.
During a press conference the day after the accident, President Trump implied that the FAA’s “diversity and inclusion hiring plan” — commonly known as DEI — was at least partly responsible. Mr. Trump started his press conference with a moment of silence for the victims. He should probably have extended it further instead of giving in to conjecture and scoring cheap political points.
After the Toronto accident, social media exploded with uninformed claims that the pilot flying the plane was a female DEI hire, as if her sex were somehow relevant.
I’ve listened to the publicly available radio communications between the pilots and air traffic control and read about their histories and qualifications. Even considering the fact of the accidents themselves, there is nothing to suggest any of the individuals directly involved weren’t qualified for their respective roles.
Accidents happen. I’ve read countless NTSB reports in which some of the most qualified, experienced, and best-trained pilots and controllers made fatal mistakes. I lost a friend 30 years ago to just such a mistake and another error took the life of my aerobatic flight instructor — an award-winning pilot — a few years later.
Our debt to those we’ve lost is to learn from their mistakes, so we don’t repeat them.
A common refrain in aviation is that we chase perfection to achieve excellence. Continued technological innovation and improved training over the decades are testaments to the goal of perfect safety. Accidents like the one over the Potomac remind us that such results are not guaranteed, and the trust gained with time is easily broken.
More than anything, that trust is built on the expectation that each pilot and controller must meet the same rigorous standards with no exception or favor and that everyone in the system is focused exclusively on operational excellence.
DEI, with its focus on race, sex, and other immutable and characteristics irrelevant to the job, automatically implies a lesser focus on talent, skills, and operational excellence.
Always eager to consider contrary views, I was particularly curious when I saw the February 4 column by a fellow pilot, Timothy Gaffney, claiming that DEI is consistent with the highly successful crew resource management (CRM) principles. Reading it, I was reminded of the old defense of communism that excuses its consistent failures by saying that real communism has never been tried.
On paper, DEI seeks to level the playing field for all through education and awareness. In practice, however, its utopian aims inevitably devolve into forced numerical parity.
Endeavor Air, a subsidiary of Delta Airlines has made having “unmanned” aircraft — as in all female flight crews — part of their public image.
I usually fly a twin-engine jet in a crew environment and am trained in CRM. What I care most about the pilot next to me is their ability to fly safely. Their sex and skin color are irrelevant. The practice of DEI forces pilots to make it relevant.
My daughter is also a pilot. She’s not a “lady pilot” as some male chauvinists call her, she’s just a pilot — and a very good one. She’s not only aced all of her written tests and check-rides so far, she once had to take over the controls from a male pilot who panicked during a gusty crosswind landing.
Because no one was injured and the plane undamaged in the incident, we can both now laugh at her spontaneous exclamation to the other pilot at the time that “this isn’t a Jesus take the wheel” situation.
The plane didn’t know the sex of the person controlling it. It’s irrelevant.
DEI is a distraction at best. As such, it’s the antithesis of effective CRM or good hiring and training programs.
It’s also a distraction for air traffic controllers.
According to New York Times reporting, “more than 90 percent” of ATC facilities are below proper staffing levels. Controllers are working mandatory overtime and many are being “pushed to the brink” by the working conditions.
There’s also a case currently working its way through the courts that claims the FAA, under the Obama administration, changed its hiring practices to favor a “race motivated hiring scheme.”
The case hasn’t been resolved and there’s no way to know if different priorities would have helped make sure 67 people could return to their families.
And that’s the real harm of DEI. It fuels speculation when evidence should rule. It diminishes the achievements of those who’ve earned them. It casts doubt where none should exist. It’s a distraction.
While Mr. Trump and other armchair aviation experts should accept the reality they were wrong to peg DEI as the cause of the DC and Toronto crashes, the failures of DEI are enough to end it anyway.