The Biden Diversity Push In Aviation Is Putting Lives At Risk

The Competency Crisis Strikes Again

A recurring theme we've discussed here is the dangerous decline in competence in America that stems from a lie: that every group is equal in average abilities, so that any disparities in test results are the result of racism or sexism. That's led to a reduction in objective testing, more affirmative action, and more incompetent people elevated to positions where they can do real damage.

We've previously looked at how this insidious problem has impacted medicine (The End of Civilization) and aviation (The Next Affirmative Action Disaster). In that second post, we noted we've already had an affirmative action cargo plane crash, and asked if an affirmative action passenger crash was next. 

In February of 2019, Flight Officer Conrad Jules Aska, pictured above, was at the controls of a Mesa Airlines Boeing 767 cargo plane, operated on behalf of Amazon.com, that crashed 40 miles southeast of George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. After the crash, investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board found evidence that Aska was unqualified for his job: 

The first officer previously worked at Mesa Airlines, Air Wisconsin, and CommutAir. At the latter two airlines, the NTSB found that he failed to finish training and was promptly flushed out of those carriers. He spent just a month at CommutAir. 

Before working at Atlas, Aska was a first officer at Mesa. He tried but could not upgrade from FO to captain on the Embraer 175 regional jet at the Phoenix-based regional carrier. Check airmen, or pilot trainers, at Mesa raised several concerning flags to NTSB investigators.

Captain Paul Allred, Mesa Air check airman, told the NTSB that Aska was "one of the worst he'd ever seen, probably a 2" out of 10 in terms of piloting skills.

Meanwhile, Captain Leigh Lawless, another Mesa Air check airman, said Aska had a "lack of understanding of how unsafe he was."

NTSB investigators wrote, from talking with Lawless, that Aska "was making very frantic mistakes, lots and lots of mistakes, and did a lot of things wrong but did not recognize this was a problem. He thought he was a good pilot never had any problems and thought that he should be a captain. He could not evaluate himself and see that he did not have the right stuff."

Is An Affirmative Action Passenger Crash Next? 

Let's hope not, but the signs so far this year have not been auspicious. Last month, a female air traffic controller at Burbank Airport in Southern California got her left and right mixed up and cleared a plane to land on a runway that already had another plane on it. 

#BREAKING Near Miss at Burbank Airport#Burbank - #CA

Runway close call around 7:05pm Wedesday evening. Mesa Airlines Flight 5826 forced to make a go-around after it was ‘clear to land.’ United Express Flight 5326 taking off on the same runway.@rawsalerts @IntelPointAlert pic.twitter.com/uJumhMRkVp

— CNW (@CANews_Watch) February 25, 2023

More Close Calls At Air Traffic Control

Since then, we've had more close calls at air traffic control, but before we get to that, let's note an inauspicious development in military aviation, the short-lived tenure of the first female commander of a U.S. Air Force acrobatic group. 

On to the latest near disaster: 

The air traffic controller in the video sounds like a young African American man. In the subsequent post in which Gregg Re includes the full video, he writes, 

In other similar 'near-miss' incidents, where pilots have apparently taken off without clearance, alert controllers have used ground radar (or their eyes) to instruct planes to stop before hitting each other, in the case of pilot error. In this case, after the collision, the controller replied, "You say what?"

It just just a year ago that the FAA announced a plan to specifically recruit "women and other underrepresented groups" to "enhance safety."

That wasn't even the only recent near disaster caused by incompetent air traffic controllers. Another was reported just last week in Portland. 

Hopefully, in between fueling wars in the Ukraine and the Mideast, someone in the Biden Administration can take a moment to reel in their diversity push in aviation before it starts killing people. 

Let's close on a positive note with a brief trading update. 

Wrapping Up A Busy Earnings Week

There are a few dozen companies reporting earnings after the close today, or before the open tomorrow. We've gone through the list and identified five bullish trades and two bearish ones that we're going to place later today. 

If you'd like a heads up when we place those trades, feel free to sign up for our trading Substack/occasional email list below. 

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