Delta plane crash report broke down by Navy pilot

Fox 9 Minneapolis ^ | March 21, 2025 | Mathew Buckley

[Mr Rogers]

I’m a former WSO/EWO. I was never a pilot. But I often flew at the controls of an F4 or F111. I could not have been the PIC because I was rated as a navigator.

PIC is not related to who has the stick - or yoke, in this case.

[GaryCrow]

There is a multitude of different reasons as to why the captain isn't always the pilot in command of the aircraft. To list just a few, these include:...

These are legal terms defined by the FAA. Pilot in Command doesn't mean the one manipulating the controls like you seem to think it does, it's the one who signs for the airplane and flight release. This is defined in the Federal Aviation Regulations, look it up. Pilot Flying is not the same as Pilot in Command. Between military and civilian I've been doing this for 35 years. I'm currently a Boeing 777 captain so I have to know this to do my job, trust me when I tell you that you don't know what you're talking about.

This is the reason I try not to comment on aviation threads on here, people get on the internet and do some minimal reading, don't understand what they're reading or listen to some ill prepared reporter and want to argue.

I'll bow out now. I broke my rule of not commenting on aviation & once again shouldn't have. Have a good day.

[bort]

Stop flitting like Pete Buttigieg. The female pilot was in control of the jet when it crashed. She is 26 years old and a former beauty queen. She had no business being in the cockpit of that jet, let alone executing a landing. Women have slower reactions than men do, They are far more likely to panic in situations that men do not panic in. You can scream “misogyny“ all you want. You are the freaking idiot. By the way, the “ultimate responsibility“ argument you are making, and which the Canadian officials are making, is total bullshit. She somehow obtained a pilots license and a pilot should be able to land a plane. So the “pilot in command“ screwed up because he allowed a licensed pilot to land a plane? In the last three months, we have witnessed three incidents involving female pilots. The crash we are talking about in Canada. The female helicopter pilot who caused a crash in Washington DC. And just recently at LaGuardia in New York, a female pilot damn near crashed a jet in turbulent, windy weather, scraping her wing on the runway before aborting a landing.

[T.B. Yoits]

But I often flew at the controls of an F4 or F111. I could not have been the PIC because I was rated as a navigator.

That is true, because under 14 CFR § 135.243 Pilot in command qualifications, you did not have pilot's license with a class rating for the F4 or F111. If you did have a pilot's license and class rating, you would have been the PIC and could have logged that time as such.

She, on the other hand, was a licensed commercial pilot with an ATP certificate with the appropriate category and class rating. She was the PIC.

[Mr Rogers]

Stop getting your panties in a wad because she was good looking. Not every pilot is ugly as sin.

And 25 years in the military means I know some women - and some men - panic, and others do not.

I also was trained as a Safety Officer and yes, a LOT of men have crashed planes, sometimes for really stupid reasons.

[T.B. Yoits]

We knew she was the PIC weeks ago, because the authorities and the media were following a corollary of Coulter's Law: "The longer we go without being told the race (or sex) of the pilot, the less likely it is to be a white man."

Both the media and the authorities wouldn't release that she was flying the airplane until it was all over social media and they couldn't hide it anymore. If it was the male pilot, who they could blame for the crash instead of their DEI darling, he would have had his name splashed all over the headlines immediately.

[BobL]

“This was a harsh example of how DEI works in practice.”

A reasonable question to ask is whether the guy next to her is even PERMITTED to take over the controls...

[bort]

A reasonable question to ask is whether the guy next to her is even PERMITTED to take over the controls...

---

Exactly. Also, was it PRACTICAL for the other pilot to take over the controls? The Canada FAA is obviously trying to sweep this under the rug by suggesting that the pilot was technically in charge of the plane. This is legalistic BS. For example, if one of my employees wrecks a company car, I’m technically responsible as I run the business, but that doesn’t change the fact that employee was negligent and caused the accident.

[BobL]

To further your analogy, it’s more like you were ORDERED to let the marginally-competent employee to take the company car, even though you knew that she was not a good driver in icy conditions.

[GranTorino]

Sorry,
I thought both the pilot and co pilot would be alert and helping each other during a landing in those weather conditions.

[GranTorino]

If I was the captain I would of been paying attention during a landing in this weather and told her to go around.
I wasn’t trying to stick up for any DEI sh!t.💩

[GranTorino]

I don’t think she could be pilot in command anyway.
She hadn’t reached 1500 hrs so had a restricted license.
Captain had low hours and was a SIM instructor.

[T.B. Yoits]

The airline wanted her to increase her hours as PIC so they can bring in another newbie behind her.

The airlines claim that by 2035 they will have overcome the pilot shortage. Yeah, good luck with that. They're just throwing numbers out there.

The only way to increase the number of pilots is to accelerate them through the pipeline.

...that and crash enough airplanes to have fewer planes (and routes) to fly.

[T.B. Yoits]

A car is not an airplane and the crew isn't going to fight over the controls unless one of the pilots is suicidal.

A pilot shows up with all the right certifications and endorsements and that's it - there's no second guessing the FAA examiners and your own airline's chief pilot who approved her to pilot one of the company planes.

The older pilot wouldn't step in because this was routine weather for Toronto. Thousands of flights have safely landed there in exactly the same conditions.