Gamers to Air Traffic Control & The Hidden Truth of Aviation Insider Threats

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Speaker 2 (0:30): Engine spooled. Checklist complete. Welcome to the Black Box Aviation podcast, where the stories behind the headlines get unpacked by the people who actually fly the damn plane. Hosted by Tom, a former military pilot turned airline and cargo, and Mike, a lifelong civilian flyer now flying left seat as an airline captain. It's aviation news, insider insight, and real pilot perspective.

Speaker 2 (0:55): Strap in.

Dominic (0:57): Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Black Box Aviation Podcast. We got a great show for you today. We're gonna jump right into it today with an email shout out from Dominic from California. Mike, we are coast to coast now, north to south, coast to coast.

Dominic (1:09): I can open that as a radio show. We're gonna talk about what it's like when you're already out on your trip working on the road, then what do you have to do? You check the weather to meet your crew. Like, it's a little bit different when you're actually out there already on the road than you are when you meet in the crew room and start the day, when you start a trip or whatever. But we're gonna talk about the insider threat.

Dominic (1:25): That's kind of a backtrack on the Sky King episode that we just did. If you haven't listened to that, go back and listen to that because that's pretty cool as well. We're still working on some stuff too. Try to work a collaboration event with another podcast, and that has to do with the ISIS soda bomb. So interesting stuff.

Dominic (1:41): We'll talk about that quick. That happened in 2015. Hey. Calling all gamers to the air traffic control system. We'll talk about what their air traffic control is, asking people who have a gaming experience to come on and maybe sign up for a job.

Dominic (1:52): And we're gonna talk about the spirit bailout, how that reacts to the COVID bailout. Now everybody wants money, Mike. I want money. Do you want money?

Unknown Speaker (1:59): I definitely want money.

Dominic (2:00): So be the money. Yeah. So let's jump right into it, Mike, with a email. This comes from Dominic in California. I think it's kinda cool that somebody from California is listening.

Dominic (2:10): I mean, anytime you see somebody pop up from another place, it's cool. And like I say, we see listeners come from England and London and things like that. It's always good. So we see somebody else pop up from from California, which is cool. Hey, if you got a question for us, email us at the blackbox01@yahoo.com.

Dominic (2:28): It's the blackbox01@yahoo.com. We'll take your email just like we did Dominic. So Dominic's question, I kinda worked it out. So I think this is what he was going for. You know, Mike, when we get to the trip and we get to the Crew Room, say you get to the Crew Room early, you know, I used to take the bus in I can't even

Unknown Speaker (2:46): The only I go to the Crew Room once a month and is to pick up my parking pass. I don't ever go to the Crew Room.

Unknown Speaker (2:52): They just redid the Crew room in Orlando, didn't they?

Mike (2:55): I mean, with the new terminal. I mean, we don't we don't yeah. It's not nope. I don't go to the Crew Room.

Dominic (3:02): See, I would go there in Boston, and there would be a lot of people there, and I'd sit down on the couch, and I'd, you know, you got my iPad, I'd update the iPad, you gotta get your apps updated. The Jet Pro does that, and then, you know, I rode in on the bus so I kinda know what the weather is already, you know, kinda if it's raining or storms or if it's a nice day, I kinda get a feel for it already. Or if I park in the garage and there's fog coming like that. So you kinda get a good idea of things. And some guys, like you said, might use go to the you go straight to the gate if you're just timing it out to make it that way, and that's that can be the way too.

Dominic (3:35): The works at at my company right now, you meet the big thing is you meet at what they call the folder, and this goes back to, like, kinda like military stuff too. Like, when you military, we call it flight planning, you actually, like, meet together in the brief and then everyone goes, like, together, all the pilots and, like, literally, you'll get out the charts, like, the paper charts. They I mean, that they were still doing that a couple years ago. I'm sure that we're still doing that. And it's old.

Mike (4:00): The European When I would flight, when I do the international stuff, we would meet in an international briefing room. But for the domestic stuff, nobody nobody meets up. It just it just doesn't happen.

Dominic (4:10): And so, like, that's kind of the thing, like, stuff. With and my company is very military based kinda in that. So you meet at the folder and everyone's like, hey, are you good? Yeah. I'm good.

Unknown Speaker (4:20): How are you good? Yeah. I'm good. You know? And everybody's always good even though they're not.

Unknown Speaker (4:24): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (4:24): If I wasn't good, I wouldn't be here. Like

Unknown Speaker (4:27): Yeah. If it's 03:00 in the morning, Mike, nobody's doing good because they just got woken up. Yeah. And everyone's been brushing their teeth. They don't look so good in there, and then suddenly you're standing at the folder.

Dominic (4:35): Yeah. You're good. I don't know about that. But so, yeah, it's different when you start a trip in base, at least, you know, definitely for me, especially if you're gonna go. But like you said, now when we do that in flight planning with my company, if you're gonna fly like Memphis to Honolulu or something like that, you're not gonna really like you don't pull charts out.

Dominic (4:56): You got your your iPad stuff. But when I go into my jet thing, it will allow me to pull up the flight plan and I can see that. So you now we have such a, you know, abundance of technology that helps you do things. Like, it overlays your SigMets and your, you know, TFRs. Anything that, like, really would kinda trip you up, like, back in the day that you wouldn't be able to catch, it's on there for you, which makes it so much easier.

Dominic (5:24): But now, let's say, this is what Dominic's saying, because we kinda talked about this before too, but when you're out there, you know, on the road, say you you did your first day, now it's the second day of the trip, you had dinner with the crew the night before, and now you're getting up and you're you're you're getting ready to go to the the vans coming, you know, or whatever it is at, you know, zero 06:15 or something, and you're gonna have to fight all the passengers that just got out of the Marriott lounge, and they get their they're all hopped up on their free eggs and coffee. So you gotta wrestle them with them to get into the van. You know, kinda like what the thought process is there. Like, how do you do you not even think about that before you get to the airport, like what do you do that morning when you get up? Say you got like a 06:00 van and, you know, what do you do that morning?

Mike (6:06): It just it depends. Like if the weather is gonna be good, I don't really do much at all. Like when remember, don't know, few months back, I talked about how you said there was like a blizzard where you were and I was like, it's good here. And then it kind of came up on came up on me while still in the hotel room. So pull up the weather in the hotel and looked at it because I knew it was something out of the normal for me.

Mike (6:28): But if it's normal stuff, I don't do much in anything. You know, I'll get the the email the flight plan emailed to me from dispatch, and I'll look through that maybe on my phone or something so I can see if there's any MELs. If we have an alternate, then that kind of perks me up for the weather and things. Other than that, there's not much to do till I get to the, you know, get to the airplane. Then I'll definitely look through the the rest of the weather, make sure it's legal, but there's not much going on.

Dominic (6:53): Well, for you guys too, like, your jets can be flying, like, all night long. So when you're at an outstation, it might be more pragmatic for you to look at, like, where did that jet come from to see if it's on time. I don't have that problem because my jet's probably been sitting there for, like, twenty four or forty eight hours because it's kinda in position, you know, wherever it is. So I'd say for you guys too, maybe. I I remember doing that.

Dominic (7:16): You you look at where's that airplane? Is there anything wrong with it? You know, or, you know, something like that. Or if it's late, you could delay your time to go out from from the from the hotel if you could. But, like, what caught what caught me one time was we're I was in Charleston and it was early it was a early go.

Unknown Speaker (7:38): The night before, there's the Turkish buffet. You ever been to the Turkish buffet in Charleston?

Unknown Speaker (7:42): No. No? Dude. That doesn't sound like my kind of place at all.

Dominic (7:46): It it was so good. It was like a family run place and

Unknown Speaker (7:50): Buffet? I mean,

Dominic (7:51): yeah. And the, like, and it was like, he made you shish kebab and then that was like your you order what you want, like beef, chicken, or lamb, and then you had buffet options. And he had baba ghanoush and the hummus. I mean, it's ridiculous. Yes.

Unknown Speaker (8:04): It was so good. Amazing. Amazing food. And the guy I was with, I told him, I said, listen. I said, we gotta take it easy today during you know, don't eat a lot of food because we're gonna go to the Turkish buffet tonight, and we're gonna turn it into Thanksgiving.

Dominic (8:17): Like, you're gonna get hurt. Like, when you leave there, you're gonna eat that much. And he's like, I'm game. So we walked over there and and we ate like it was Thanksgiving. We would get back to the hotel and we had an early go.

Dominic (8:26): And I mean, we finished dinner at, you know, six, 7PM.

Unknown Speaker (8:30): Yeah.

Dominic (8:30): The 05:00 van came mighty early and we were both, like, still, like, right, you know, food coma is still kinda settling in. And I remember going to the jet and, you you know, Charleston can have, like, that foggy, like, overcast kind of thing, you know. It wasn't storming or anything.

Mike (8:49): Yeah. But you have that southern humidity and everything, and it and it brings some morning fog sometimes.

Dominic (8:55): Yeah. So we get to the jet, and I was like, oh, we do the walk around and get things going. I I think everything was fine, and we got a first run, like, Charleston to Kennedy or something. I don't even know. And we start taxiing, and, like, I never pulled up the radar.

Dominic (9:13): Like, I never looked on the JEPS app to look at the radar around us. I don't even know why. Like, there was there was no convection. Like, you couldn't see any lightning or anything around, but for whatever reason, I didn't do it. And we taxi.

Dominic (9:25): You know, you there's multiple runways there, and I was more worried about crossing runways. In Charleston, there's multiple runways crossings. There's military operation going on, but you gotta pay attention. And then there's a morning bank launch, and so you're paying attention to those jets that are going out. So we taxi out and we take off, and man, we get through about 1,500 feet, and it's like heavy heavy rain, like just smashing the airplane.

Unknown Speaker (9:49): And the radars are like,

Dominic (9:51): no. That that's totally my fault. And it, like, the radar is like magenta and it wasn't like, and we're and we're in we're in pretty good bumps, and there's no, like, thunder. There's no lightning, but holy cow, did we just launch into, like, some serious saturation. And I had no idea.

Unknown Speaker (10:09): So, like, that's one of those things where you should pay attention in the morning and run everything.

Mike (10:13): And I'd be lying if I said something like that never caught me before, but usually at least I'll check my radar on my phone, you know, the my radar app, and then if I see something pop up around the flight where I think we're gonna be flying, then I'll get more in-depth on it, you know, and go into the WSI app or something like that. But, you know, I and I usually look at that, like, the hotel van. I'll at least look at the radar on my phone just like a normal radar, you know, nothing fancy. That way I have a heads up for something what you just encountered.

Unknown Speaker (10:41): And that's what's cool is that we have those tools available to us to, you know,

Mike (10:44): especially I'm trying to think about, when I flew comm air or something, you know, we didn't have smartphones.

Unknown Speaker (10:50): We didn't have that. Yeah. We didn't have any of that. I

Mike (10:52): I guess you just looked at the I can't remember. You look at the radar on the computer or something. I don't remember. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (10:58): Well, you if you got to

Unknown Speaker (10:59): the You get, like, your ETORS and TAPS and everything, but

Unknown Speaker (11:01): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (11:02): You just kinda figured it out, I guess. I don't know.

Unknown Speaker (11:05): Yeah. Because you get a big packet from a weather print or, like, a printout that would have all your weather on the And the other one on all your

Unknown Speaker (11:11): DOS printers, you know, when you, like, little holes and you

Unknown Speaker (11:14): could pull The punch holes. The side

Unknown Speaker (11:15): of the Yes.

Unknown Speaker (11:16): Yeah. The thing's going There's a gate agent be like getting attacked by paper. Like, paper's like coming at them and, you know, you always I would always do that. The average

Mike (11:25): average listener thinks that's like super old technology. It really wasn't that long ago we were using them in the airlines. No. I mean, like, within the last ten years for sure, you know. So You ever walk

Dominic (11:35): up to the gate agent and, like, you got a jump seat or something and you kinda, like, time crunched and the paper's, like, attacking her and you're, like, oh, like, I really need you to check my cast, but, like, she's wrestling with paper that's spitting out of the machine.

Mike (11:49): I mean, I'm just thankful I don't commute anymore because like I don't I don't jump seat, you know, or very rarely. Thankfully, I'm not dealing with that anymore but I have. I've definitely walked up there when they're you can tell that they're a little under the gun and stressed out, and then you're like, you have to speak up. Yeah.

Dominic (12:06): You have to speak up while they're still getting attacked by the thing, so but I think, you know, for for the most part though, like, you kinda get an idea what's going on around you, especially as you go in and and you should probably take take awareness to that, like, I still tell that Charleston story, but, you know, you know, most of the time you're I I don't know how you are, Mike, but, like, I'm kind of a weather nerd. Like, I kinda know what's going on just because I like to pay attention to that. So I'm definitely intrigued to see

Mike (12:31): what's know what catches me is like, you know, this time of year is a good time of year too because it's like the weather that you're not getting the summer thunderstorms. It's not really that much rain going on. It's kind of the dry season, but this is when that one cell in the morning could sneak up on you because you're not expecting it, you know, I guess. Maybe this was the time of year you were leaving Charleston.

Dominic (12:51): Yeah. Well, I don't even remember, but speaking of cells, did you see the tornadoes in Oklahoma last week?

Unknown Speaker (12:57): I did.

Dominic (12:57): Did. Dude, that's the town I lived in in Oklahoma. Eaton, Oklahoma. Yeah. It was about two miles to the east of the base, Vance Air Force Base.

Dominic (13:05): That's where I was stationed. I flew t ones there, and there were some times when we were there where I mean, Nicole will tell stories, like, can we act it out and it's funny because she crouches down, like, in pretending to be in, like, the bathtub, and I come from the other room and I'm carrying, like, a full size mattress and it's two in the morning, and she's makes, like, the the tornado sirens, you know, going off. So we can reenact it pretty well. It's it's a quite comical scene. It wasn't comical at the time.

Dominic (13:30): Oh, and then one time I had I had her and I pinned down from the mattress. And she's, like, pregnant with Anna, so she's, like, like, in the bathtub, like, protecting her stomach, and then she's, my rings, my wedding rings. And I'm like, where are they? She's like, they're in the bedroom and like the tornado sirens are going off and I'm like, you want me to get them? She's like, yes.

Dominic (13:48): And I like peel the mattress back and run back to get her rings. So yeah, she would have sacked me up to get her ring.

Mike (13:55): I never had to do anything like that, you know.

Unknown Speaker (13:58): Well, you can see tornadoes. See tornadoes. Yeah.

Mike (14:00): Yeah. But they're not typically not very big, you know, not like Oklahoma, you know. I mean, you're getting that's the real deal.

Dominic (14:06): Yeah. That was the EF Ford, the one that happened this week. I never saw anything like that, and it get luckily for us when we were in Oklahoma, there was never any significant damage to the town. Like, they would touch down here and there, and and the sirens go off and stuff, and it was scary. But, yeah, it's this time of year, like you said, where there can be frontal boundaries and and things you need to pay attention to.

Mike (14:24): So because the weather's so good, and all of sudden, boom, it changes, and you're you're just not expecting it. Know, in the summertime, that stuff doesn't sneak up on you because you know it's gonna be out there, you know. But Yeah. Right now, it could it could sneak in on you.

Dominic (14:36): Yep. Yep. No doubt about it. Anyways, so I think that kind of hopefully that answers Dominic's question for us. I wanted to circle back on this, Mike, quick and we kinda talked about this first in the in the opening, and it goes back to the Sky King discussion where there's the insider threat.

Dominic (14:55): Like, there's there's not much you can do to really stop that insider threat, because like we said before, there's so many people that work at the airport, there's so many backgrounds, and, you know, their sighted badges and background checks

Unknown Speaker (15:06): and all that stuff. Yeah. They're there. They got the badge. They're gonna access whatever they wanna access, and there's yeah.

Mike (15:11): There's very little you can do about it.

Dominic (15:13): So I totally forgot about this incident, but in November 2015, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for bringing down a Metrojet flight. It was actually a Russian airliner, and it crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, And it was brought down by improvised explosive device, the ID. ICE is clean. They took pictures of it before they took off, and then there were pictures of it. I think there were some damage with some of the beverage carts too, but they posted ISIS posted a picture of a soft drink can and it was loaded with TNT.

Dominic (15:45): There were two hundred and twenty four people that were killed, mostly Russian tourists, but this is one of these things where they pretty much think that it was an insider threat with that loaded a soda can with two pounds of TNT inside the bev cart. And I don't know if they snuck it back to somebody or what, but Russian did confirm that it was a bomb that caused a crash. And there were there was some conflicting stuff about whether it was a soda can bomb or something like that. But, I mean, this goes to say that, you know, that's the kind of stuff that you really can't stop to some degree. And maybe it's like that two man, three man integrity that comes into play that they try to re you know, reinforce or bring back in the the the Seattle area after this and the aftermath of this the Sky King hijacking.

Unknown Speaker (16:35): But, you know, what are you gonna do with that kind of stuff, you know?

Mike (16:38): And You have to believe in him. Look at, like, a catering truck or something, and I don't know the security that the caterers go through before they get to work because they don't go through the same lines that we go through. There's like another employee line somewhere, but I don't know how strict it is. I don't know if they have a side of badge and can just go in and maybe only do a random screening. Don't know, every airport's gonna be a little different, right?

Mike (16:57): Then I don't know what the what like the coke cans, like when the shipments come in, I don't know what kind of security they go through, You know, so it might not even be the caterer that's loading it on the airplane, it could be whoever loaded it in the catering truck or who knows where down the line this is happening. Not that it's happening on a regular basis, thank God, but it is a threat that you know, I've definitely thought about. I'm like when I see these people putting stuff on my airplane, know, snack boxes and drinks and sandwiches and catering for the first class and I don't know what they're putting on there and it's not our responsibility to go through and check it. We would never have the time to check all that stuff. And if it's in a Coke can that's sealed, what are you gonna do?

Unknown Speaker (17:37): You have no idea. No clue.

Mike (17:39): A scary thing, man. And as again, you're just trusting the people that are there, that they're supposed to be there, and they're doing their job the way they're supposed to do it. But Yeah. You can't worry about that kind of stuff, I guess. You

Dominic (17:50): know, let's just go through it. I don't think about it. It's just something that's there for sure, and it's presented itself in the past. I mean, obviously, this is Egypt. It was done by a radical Islamic terrorist group Sure.

Dominic (18:02): That was grumpy with Russia for bombing Syria. So, you know, they had something going on there, but again, terrorism in the airlines is nothing new and it's not gonna go away.

Mike (18:12): No, because it incites a lot of fear, right? I mean, can kill way more people at a a festival or something than you can on an airplane, but you take down an airplane and it just sparks fear and that's what they want.

Unknown Speaker (18:22): Yeah, then it's totally sensational and

Mike (18:24): it's about killing people, it's about the fear that it drives through, you know, the whole country and the economic impact, you know, so.

Dominic (18:34): This is kinda off topic, I just thought about this. Do you remember the soda cans? I think it was a Coke or Pepsi promo, like, in the nineties where, like, if you open the can and then, like, money would come up out of it. Do you remember this?

Unknown Speaker (18:50): No. I don't remember that.

Dominic (18:53): Coca Cola Classic introduces Magic Can. Yeah. So it it was like the promo, so you would buy, like, 12 packs of Coke and then, you know, they were labeled that said, like, you could, these were the sweepstake cans. You know, if if one of them opened and the money came out, then you got the money. And I I forget how many was, you know, some of them had like $5, some of them like 20, and I I think some of them had like thousand, like a a ticket would come off like that.

Dominic (19:18): I don't know what it was, but what happened was that people would grab the 12 packs and they're in the store, they're being dopey, you know, they're not paying attention. So they grab the 12 pack, they go home, they open the can and and the can, like, mount were, like, malfunctioning so the money, like, wouldn't come out. So they open the can, like, nothing be there, throw it away. They grab another one and be like, hey. Cheated out of a can of Coke in my 12 pack.

Unknown Speaker (19:41): That's a backfire on the sweepstakes.

Unknown Speaker (19:43): You don't remember that? Don't remember that at all.

Unknown Speaker (19:46): Those were in the summers of, like, watching MTV Beach House and stuff like that. You're younger than me, so maybe I

Mike (19:53): don't remember MTV Beach House and all that. I don't I don't remember and I definitely remember drink promotions where you could get things, but I don't remember money coming out of a can.

Unknown Speaker (20:02): Yeah. It was money. What? Well, ask well, ask my buddy Jay. He'll remember that because we would talk about that.

Unknown Speaker (20:06): We'd always think we'd hit it. If we if we get $5 you have $5 when you were, like, a 12 year old kid, you, hit the lottery, know, that was a score.

Unknown Speaker (20:11): That'd be a lot of money now.

Unknown Speaker (20:13): We'd poke the cans like on the shelf, because that one no. That one's full. It's full. Yeah. Yeah.

Dominic (20:18): And then my mom would like, get the cocoa. Let's get out of here. Dude, I don't know if you've seen this, but air traffic control is and the FAA is actively recruit actively recruiting gamers, age 18 to 30. Have you seen this story?

Mike (20:34): I have. What do you think? I think it's it's not a bad approach. Right? I mean, why not get someone that's used to sitting in front of a screen and managing different things and multitasking and they're definitely gonna have a skill set and you can say whatever you want about them, but like they're definitely gonna have a skill set of being able to stare at a screen for long hours and multitask.

Mike (20:55): And, you know, I mean, it's there is some gaming to that, you know. They still gotta go through the training, right, and see who who can make it through and who's gonna get weeded out, but I don't think it's a bad approach.

Dominic (21:04): I I have to agree. I think this is a good place to go for, like, people that could be engaged in this and are looking cause they're having a problem. Right? You're having a problem attracting this group of recruitment or whatever, and you're having a high turnover rate, which is normal for what they've been doing in the past. But maybe this is a new way of looking at it that's gonna change that whole dimension of of, you know, and the definition of what what's been happening with this hiring.

Dominic (21:29): So, you know, they're looking to target individuals with high level aptitude, you know, fast reflexes, strong hand eye coordination, developed through gaming, and they're looking to fill 8,000 positions. You know, it's a target audience of young adults. Hey. That's great too because you got a bunch of guys gaming that live in their parents basement, and we gotta get them out of there.

Unknown Speaker (21:51): Dominate it. Loans. They gotta get a good job. They got student loans for that for that liberal arts degree.

Unknown Speaker (21:57): That's right. You got a a liberal arts degree in history, and you're down in the basement playing Mortal Kombat four. I don't even know what I'm I'm not a gamer. I think we just lost all our audience too, Mike. I apologize.

Unknown Speaker (22:10): Those guys are turning. They they are goofing all the gamers. I'll show them. I'll turn this thing right off.

Mike (22:16): It's just because we have kids and we don't have time for that kind of stuff anymore. I used to like video games when I was younger, but you just you just I don't I literally don't have time for them.

Dominic (22:26): Yeah. If I liked it, maybe I would do it, but, like, I we have a box and I got like the golf on there, and the kids would play Minecraft, but they never really got into it, and I never was into Call of Duty or anything like that. Do you remember Call of Duty when we're in like the regional and the hotels and stuff like that where guys play that? Did you play that?

Mike (22:45): I remember. I mean, I never did. But, you know, I mean, back in our day, was like the Goldfinger. Remember that James Bond Goldfinger Oh, yeah. That was like the first, like, first player, like, shooting game or whatever.

Mike (22:56): That was hot.

Dominic (22:57): You played Mario Kart? I remember playing that in college. But look, I know parents that like, swim parents that will bring the gaming system with them to the hotels, like, when they

Mike (23:09): That's much no. Not doing that. You that's that's

Dominic (23:12): how it goes. Is the target that that the air traffic control is looking for. And, you know, I think that, you know, why not? This is good stuff and look, I think if you go back to it, I remember being in on a Jacksonville, Florida overnight, and I went for a run and there were signs up everywhere. There was a huge convention for gaming, and it was like a big deal.

Dominic (23:38): A matter of fact, a year later,

Unknown Speaker (23:40): I don't if you A remember shooting there? Exactly. Yeah. I knew you were going there. There there was a big yeah.

Unknown Speaker (23:46): It was a big story.

Unknown Speaker (23:48): Huge story.

Unknown Speaker (23:49): And it was right on the water, right? It was a pretty cool place.

Dominic (23:51): And it wasn't a shooting like somebody had, like, sneakers that the other guy wanted or something, like, these guys had beef because they were out there gaming and one guy was they were gonna make big money. Like, there was a big payout at the end of this tournament. They're playing for money. Like, they weren't there because they're gonna get bragging rights. Like, no.

Dominic (24:10): This was a payday. So there are people out there that have these skills that are so, I guess, highly recognized and fine tuned that, you know, and they're and they're looking for monetary compensation, so why not be air traffic controller? I mean, I think there's

Mike (24:24): some don't don't I don't have a problem with it, because they still gotta go through the normal air traffic control school and pass training and everything, so I have no problem with that at all.

Dominic (24:31): Yeah, I agree. I think it's kind of revolutionary and

Mike (24:35): And that's the and we want the younger age because they have to retire at 55, I think. So it's, you know, there's you can't go recruit 45 year olds because usually not by the time they get done with training, only got a couple years

Unknown Speaker (24:46): Yeah. Yeah. No. I agree. I agree.

Dominic (24:48): And that's the hard part is keeping someone that maybe just thinks that air traffic control is like a good job. So they're like, oh, yeah. Heard this was a good job, and they don't know anything about aviation. Like like, Ian told us that he knew he had some aviation background because he was in in the air force and everything, but if you're just somebody off the street that gets picked up at a a job fair or something and you're like, well, there's always federal benefits and they have all this stuff and then you get can make

Mike (25:11): 6 figures with with a pension and yeah, let me sign me up, know, the federal government, job security, know, as long as, you know, yeah, it's not for everyone. Being a pilot's not for everyone, being a teacher's I not for mean, you've got to find out what you want to do and and what you were designed to do and and go do it, you know?

Dominic (25:32): Yeah. You sit down if you're not into that and, you know, you start seeing peeling back the layers of that and it's it's stressful, like, it might not be for you. So I think what we should talk about too in this is because all this kinda comes on the heels of another couple close calls here. I don't know if you saw this, but there are two Southwest Airlines jets that forced to take evasive action last week. They were at Nashville, and they both got RAs.

Dominic (25:56): Did you see this, Mike? Yeah. I think

Mike (25:57): that one was that was more pilot error though, I think, wasn't it?

Dominic (26:01): It it was. Yeah. But again, it comes in if you're the controller and you see this happening, like, this is part of the job, and it was a go around. One of the jets was doing a go around. I think they didn't execute the proper procedure on that.

Dominic (26:15): But once once another jet starts going around, you know, off another runway and you have a jet that's already taking off on the on the parallel, the other one needs to follow the procedure. Normally, that procedure will take them away from the other traffic. Now the air traffic controller, it's something now that's happened.

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Mike (27:02): Now people say people people say how can that happen? Like, well, going around is not it is kind of a normal procedure, like it's nothing crazy, right? But we don't do them frequently, so it would be a normal procedure, right? It's not normal. Totally safe, but when it happens and it's unexpected, you're so busy flying the plane and you tell ATC, hey, we're going around, they might give you a clearance like a heading and an altitude that's not in in your programmed in your box, so it's not like the the planned go around or the the published go around, but in that heading and out to just went in one ear and out the other because you're so like tunnel vision on flying the plane and getting the gear up and holy cow, we're actually going around, what's going on, you know, and your asses and elbows and everything else, and you didn't hear the heading and now you have an RA.

Mike (27:52): I'm not saying that's what happened, but when people are like, how could they do that? How could they? Because it's not a norm how many times have you gone around the last year? You know, I mean, once Yeah. No.

Mike (28:02): Don't know. Doesn't happen. So it's

Dominic (28:05): Oh, either I went around we went around in Toronto. This is, like, two years ago, and I was with the line check airman, and it was like, the wind was super gusty, but we were line leaning not on any parallel runways, and he, like, decides that he's out of the touchdown zone, which I don't think was a good call, and he calls go around. And like you said, we're we're we're asses and elbows trying to figure out what's going on in the airplane because he he And it's perfectly up.

Mike (28:28): It's just there's a moment of, like, you're just kinda behind the airplane. Right? You're not nothing's dangerous, but you might miss a clearance from ATC because you're that busy.

Unknown Speaker (28:38): And it's yeah. I think it surprised your traffic control too because they're like, what they're like, what happened? What are you doing? And I'm like, hold on. We'll get back to you here.

Dominic (28:45): Yeah. We got a handful of MD 11 here. We're gonna get this figured out first, and then I'll get back to you. But if you're dealing with an RA and you got a handful of airplane and air traffic trolls, like, what are you doing? Because their scopes are gonna go crazy at the same time.

Unknown Speaker (28:59): Sure.

Dominic (28:59): And like, everybody now has gone from normal ops to like super heightened panic, and that happened in it happens in a second. It's an instant. Everything changed at that one point.

Mike (29:09): TCAS is a great is a great thing and and it worked this time and it prevented a collision and, you know, I'm glad it worked. I mean, it's a great tool. It's a great piece of technology and it's basically the two airplanes talk to each other. They see that how they're closing and they'll steer one to go one way and tell one to go the other way, climb or descend and, you know, it worked good. It worked the way it was supposed to.

Dominic (29:29): Yeah. I'm glad you said that too and what it it shows you in the cockpit, it shows you like red and green areas and and the flight director will show you like where to go. It shows a fly to point. So the airplane's not gonna fly it for you, but it's gonna say this is what you need to do to deconflict with what that guy is gonna do, and it sends the opposite information to the other guy.

Mike (29:50): So and it's so accurate that they even teach if ATC gives you a clearance during an RA to ignore ATC and do what the RA says. Yeah. Because because ATC doesn't know what the airplanes are saying to each other, you know, electronically. So if it's telling you to climb and telling them to descend, then you just do what that tells you, and then you figure out ATC later.

Dominic (30:11): Yeah. And it's hard to do because, like, the ATC is the voice of, like, God sometimes telling you, like,

Mike (30:16): to do I've gotten RAs. I've never got a conflicting clearance with an RA versus air traffic control though, but I have gotten RAs, and usually once you tell ATC Hey, I'm getting an RA, they just say Hey, advise when you're clear. Clear conflict. Yeah. And they just let you go do your own thing because they know what the system is working, right?

Dominic (30:37): Yeah, agree and another similar incident happened at Kennedy last Monday. There was a That

Unknown Speaker (30:44): was also a pilot there.

Unknown Speaker (30:46): It was another one. Right?

Unknown Speaker (30:47): It was a go through the localizer, didn't they?

Dominic (30:50): Yeah. And and then he did the go around, and I think I think somebody else is landing on one three or something. It was like a Jazz in a Republic. Is that is that what you heard with it?

Mike (31:00): Thought was like I thought it was somebody landing three one right, someone's landing three one left, and the guy overshot three one left localizer and went three one right. And then You know, got close to the guy on 3 one right.

Unknown Speaker (31:12): And he yeah. That's that's

Mike (31:13): But again, don't I'm a head I'm a headline reader only, so don't depend on my accuracy of information.

Dominic (31:18): No. I was pulling up these these things too because the headlines were saying that. And like we were saying, like, it's been this was we were talking about last week that just me and you about it being in the news a lot more, and maybe just because the whole air traffic control stuff, the jet fuel crisis, like, the airlines are just making the news, like, a lot.

Mike (31:33): And and there are people on social media that all day long, they just watch this kind of stuff on FlightRadar24, so as soon as they see a go around, boom, it's already all over social media. So there's so many things that happened on a regular basis that nobody ever knew about, And now it's like you can't sneeze without someone, you know, you just can't get away with anything. And I mean there's some there's some good things to be held accountable for, but sometimes we don't need to scare the public because, you know, of a pilot deviation. I mean, it's not like pilot deviations never happened before today, so I don't know.

Dominic (32:13): Yeah. That's a tough one to to kinda figure out, like how much more is this just actually being talked about versus like it actually happened all the time, and I'm

Mike (32:20): sure there's stats on that because when you tell ATC you're going around, they're gonna say, what's the reason for the go around and all that, and then they document it. So I'm sure somewhere you can find some stats from ten years ago versus today, and and I wouldn't be surprised if they're relatively similar. I just think the that the the percentage that makes it to the public is way up. That'd be my guess.

Dominic (32:44): I I think you're right because think about the tools that we have as pilots now, like the TCAS, like If

Mike (32:49): anything yeah. Exactly. If anything, some of these events, they might be going down.

Dominic (32:54): Yeah. Because we can see. We have such a better situational awareness picture in front of us to kinda see sequencing and what people are doing or where they're going. And back in the day, you're you're flying the DC nine to the parallel and the DC ten's on the other parallel, like, you just got a needle, man. Like, that's all there is.

Mike (33:14): Mean, when was the last mid air collision of two commercial airplanes?

Unknown Speaker (33:19): Oh jeez, Mike, you're you're playing with you're playing with the stars now, bringing the stuff up like that, but

Unknown Speaker (33:24): Do you know what I mean? Like, it's not it's not common.

Dominic (33:27): There was the mid air in Brazil between the Legacy and a seven three, and that had to do with one of the aircraft not operating their TCAS correctly. So Okay. There you go. Like, that's a great example of it. I wish I had more details.

Dominic (33:43): Actually, maybe we'll do a Hot Topic on that because yeah. I was thinking about

Mike (33:47): there was a because we could do it with little Gordia not having the transponder on the fire truck and how it relates to airplane. We could do a whole yeah. Would be a good shot.

Dominic (33:56): Oh, you know what? You brought that up too. Let's talk about that quick because this wasn't in in what we're gonna talk about, but since you brought that up. So the NTSB released a preliminary report, and I don't have it up with me. We're just kinda talking off the top of our heads right now, but this is LaGuardia crash, and we talked about it, Mike, on on the side about what what we should bring up about it.

Dominic (34:15): There wasn't much more to it than what we had kinda discussed. Do you remember any details that stuck out to you from the prelim

Mike (34:22): that you Like can you said, nothing that we talked about. I mean, nothing that we didn't talk about. Just, you know, they they were really putting more of the blame on the air on the truck not having the transponder, you know. So Yeah. I things and and I'm glad they, you know, try to pull it away from the air traffic controller, know, because it it wasn't a 100% his fault.

Dominic (34:41): No. And I think the big thing in this, and and they talk about it too in the prelim report, is that the the incident of the United emergency that was happening, like, was a big factor in this.

Unknown Speaker (34:50): Oh, yeah.

Dominic (34:50): But, Mike, like we said, and we talked about it in the LaGuardia crash, post crash stuff, is, we still don't have a transcript or CVR tapes from what the pilots were talking about. And I think that's kind of the last missing piece. Now you talked about it, Mike, to say, you know, well, does it really matter, you know, what those guys saw or didn't see or what they're talking about. But I'm I'm really curious about if they saw it or they were talking about it. Like, I just wanna know, like,

Mike (35:18): you know Did they know did they hear the fire truck on the on the radio that he was cleared to cross? You know, did they hear I get it. I mean, it'd be interesting, wouldn't it?

Dominic (35:26): Because that's what you said. You said, well, if the radios were blocked at the time, like, because there were a bunch of people talking at the same time, you know, maybe they missed that call, we don't know. And I think the CVR will show that if they heard it or Yeah,

Mike (35:38): because if they don't if they if it's just and even if it went over their ears, doesn't mean if they didn't talk about it, then they probably didn't hear it, you know? So Yeah. And they're in a they're in a very critical stage of flight, putting the gear down, running the landing checklist, tech, I mean, they're very busy, so

Dominic (35:54): Yeah, the weather wasn't great that night either. It wasn't horrible, but it was just another piece of the puzzle. There was just Afghan, all these aviation accidents, it's not just one thing. There's always multiple things that happen and

Mike (36:04): Yeah. But now, CVR, it would be it's hard to sit here and point, think, guess of what they could've or could not have seen without the CVR. So it's just one of the things we gotta wait on.

Dominic (36:14): Yeah. So we will keep track of that, and but I did wanna mention that, and I I totally forgot to put to drop that in there, but the prelim report is out. So if you peep if if if listeners are listening to that and see it somewhere out there, like, that's kinda what's going on. So check it out, but there's really not too much information. And if you haven't listened to that, go back and listen to the Guardia episode that we we did.

Dominic (36:31): It covers quite a bit of that stuff. Mike, I wanted to jump into this real quick because this has been discussed about what we've been talking about on the side a lot. We did talk about the show a little bit about too, but Spirit Airlines has been in and out of bankruptcy, I think, twice now. Is that right?

Mike (36:49): But they haven't got they haven't got out the second time, but they're in bankruptcy for the second time in less than a year.

Dominic (36:55): And during that time, they asked for concessions from their pilots and their unions, and the pilots concess back, I think, was it 8%? It was a percentage of salary that they gave back was

Unknown Speaker (37:03): I don't remember.

Dominic (37:04): But they are some and I didn't even know this was happening, but there's an announcement last week that came out that said Spirit was close to a $500,000,000 bailout with the government. And this is a this is a tough one, Mike, because you don't wanna see people lose their jobs, especially in the aviation industry. But we're also talking about, like, a capitalist market where if Spirit were to cease operations, it's gonna open the void to companies that have been not subject to bankruptcy

Unknown Speaker (37:37): Right.

Unknown Speaker (37:37): To capitalize on that. How do you how do

Mike (37:39): you nationalize one? And if they own 90 per they're talking about the government owning up to 90% of Spirit, now maybe and then maybe selling it for a profit later or something, but how does the government own one how do they have a nationalized airline, and tell me how that's going to create a fair environment for everybody else. You know, if it ever came down to a TSA fine, are they gonna fine themselves? Is how are they gonna if it if it comes down to slot restricted airports, who's gonna get them? You know, is it gonna be the government the airline owned by the government?

Mike (38:10): I mean, this opens up a whole can of worms, man. And like you said, it's it's you don't wanna see anybody lose their job.

Dominic (38:15): Honestly, I think this this can of worms got opened and then stuffed back in the bag in 2020 during the COVID bailouts. And the government provided $54,000,000,000 in pandemic relief to passenger airlines for the CARES Act, and they passed subsequent legislation that prevented mass layoffs and industry collapse. Because they would've. Because everybody they would have to lay off 60% of everybody because no one was flying. They weren't making any money.

Dominic (38:40): American Airlines took $12,600,000,000, Delta took 11.9, United took 10.9, Southwest took $7,200,000,000. Those are billions of dollars and they didn't pay it back. It was there was just they were grants. There were some like loan kickback things that happened that they had to pay back, but it wasn't in the b words. It was in the millions, the m words.

Dominic (39:02): And that saved them, and it saved the industry. And I think that's when you get into this weird thing. I mean, and it goes back to 2009, the great recession when you had the car bailouts, you know, and it was like, what's the government doing with that? But you had all these people that were gonna lose their jobs at the same time. So I think this industry is different than COVID because and the situation is different because everybody isn't stopped because of a a, you know, a global pandemic.

Unknown Speaker (39:26): So that's the that's the biggest variable that's not playing right now.

Mike (39:30): If you bail out Spirit, what does that do to Frontier? Because you gotta think those are the two most direct competitors. Right? They both run that that ultra low cost system, right? So if you bail if you give Spirit 500,000,000, then what's Frontier supposed to do?

Mike (39:45): They're over here just thinking, we never declared bankruptcy. We're we're running the same business model and we're working our butts off for what? You know, it becomes that whole, that's why socialism doesn't work kind of thing. Should I work harder if we're gonna bail this guy out?

Dominic (39:59): Right. Like, that's what you're talking about now. It's like, you're talking about a capitalist market. And and I think that's one of the things that the last administration sided with Spirit and the JetBlue merger were saying, well, we need to keep competition ultra high because this is a capitalist market. And now suddenly, it's gonna be a socialist bailout market, like, what what shoe are we wearing?

Dominic (40:17): You know, they keep taking them on and putting them off. There's an article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal that I sent to you that showed Frontier and Avella want money. So who else is next, Mike? Who's gonna be I want money. You want money.

Mike (40:30): Why would you not at this point, why would you not ask for it? If you have you're an airline that has not turned in a profit and they give money to Spirit, you've gotta think that you should get some too. Right? I mean, why wouldn't you at least ask? All they can say is no.

Mike (40:43): Right? I mean, why would you not ask?

Dominic (40:45): Yep. It's like the mother's alternate conundrum when the kid asks to sleep over the house and then the other kid's like, if I say yes, then the other kid has to say yes and then, you know, everybody's gonna want it. Everybody's hands gonna start coming out for for an rant.

Unknown Speaker (40:58): I feel like it's gotta happen within the next day or two. They're saying that Spirit didn't have no money to through the week. It's Monday, you know. So

Dominic (41:06): Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, Mike too, like, they're talking about Spirit says they're gonna need an extra 20, something like 20

Mike (41:16): And how much cash is Spirit burning through? So I mean, 500,000,000, it sounds like a lot. It's not a lot. Not if they're burning through millions a day, you know, like, it might only does the government bail them out only for them to just close a couple months from now? Like, I

Dominic (41:29): don't And that would kinda go in the face of yeah. Because you're saying because the government was saying, well, if we if we buy them now and jet fuel prices go down, we can sell them at a profit, but

Unknown Speaker (41:38): They weren't making money when jet fuel prices were down.

Unknown Speaker (41:41): Yeah. It it this is this has been going on for a year. And I I think this this is all part of the competitive market because I mean They declared

Mike (41:48): bankruptcy twice before we went to war with Iran.

Dominic (41:51): So Yeah. And yeah. The the legacies figured out the secret sauce and the low cost carriers, and they could attract those those flyers to fly their airlines for the for the credit card points, for the lounges credit

Mike (42:02): cards, man. It's the credit card. It's because they get every time you go to the store and buy a gallon of milk with your Delta Gold card, Delta's gonna get a kickback, know. That's where they're making their money and they have the networks that are big enough to support that. That's where you're finding Spirit and Southwest.

Mike (42:17): Southwest is big but they don't have the network that these major airlines have. That's why Alaska went and picked up to Hawaiian, so that they could start to build their their program, you know, because if you don't have the network to support someone getting your credit card, it's hard to make money right now.

Dominic (42:31): Yeah, and we're talking about, companies like JetBlue merging with United or other carriers, and, like, that's kinda like the the the the elephant in the room to be like, well, you can't give money to Avello, Frontier, and Spirit, and then say, oh, JetBlue, sorry, you didn't get merged last year, and oh, by the way, good luck with being on your own because we don't know what's gonna happen to you, like, it's just not I'm not saying anything has to be fair, right, but it just doesn't make sense logically in the business world of how you go down.

Mike (42:59): That's why you they either needed to keep the airlines regulated or just let it go on right you can't it's the most unregulated regulated industry there is. I mean, and it and that and it's True. And it makes it you either gotta regulate it and run it like you did back in the sixties and seventies or let it go, and when these companies fail, they fail. Like, there's someone who'll pick up the slack. It'll make the other airlines work harder and pick up the slack.

Mike (43:23): Like, they're not gonna there's not gonna be hundreds of thousands of people that can't get a plane ticket, you know. I mean, it's I don't know.

Dominic (43:31): If you are an aviation nerd, and hopefully you are because you're listening to this show, go do a wiki of government deregulation and you'll learn names like Frank Lorenzo, people like this that just did horrible things with airlines and they would just burn money and they'd make money and burn down another airline and they just it just went out of control after deregulation. And the coming out of the ashes from that stuff was just only a couple companies, like, can't even identify what came out of that. Like, maybe Southwest is one of them that kind of came through there, but there's so many companies that don't really or they kind of have names of what those were, but there's so many companies that are gone, like Eastern, Pan Am. They just don't exist anymore and it's a result of this the the horrible nature of the industry. And that's I think maybe that's what makes it interesting at the same time, Mike, for us to talk about and be be a part of.

Dominic (44:20): I mean, it's scary sometimes. I remember being in the auditorium and the CEO of the airline I used to work at last time said, you know, this is not an industry for the faint of heart. He said that in front of all of us and I was like, I guess you're right. And look, I've seen it. You've been through it.

Dominic (44:36): I've seen a whole bunch of nonsense happen in in my time. After you everyone said, well, it'll never be like it was after deregulation. I think it's been worse, honestly. Hey. I just Venmoed you for rent.

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Mike (45:15): It probably has been because it's still regulated. You gotta let it go one way or the other. You know? You know, it's it's it's unregulated except we're gonna fine you for this and we're gonna you can only fly here and you have to get this permit for the you know, it's what are you talking about?

Dominic (45:30): Yep. But you gotta trade slots. Oh, you wanna do that? You gotta trade slots with them. Oh, you only get this.

Dominic (45:34): Now this is slots. Now there's no more slots anymore, but we paid billions of dollars for those slots. Well, we don't care about that anymore. Like, they constantly change the rules and and it doesn't matter. Hey, dude.

Dominic (45:46): I started doing the triple seven

Unknown Speaker (45:48): training. Doing a minor

Unknown Speaker (45:50): one s.

Unknown Speaker (45:51): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (45:52): You do yeah. The the CBT training. It's been fun.

Unknown Speaker (45:54): Yeah.

Dominic (45:55): I mean, kinda like get back into it. So, I'm looking forward to that. So, you know, and I don't know, do you guys do when you start a new program, do you guys start a, like, a LMS, like a system There's

Mike (46:07): some online CBTs, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're going to go more to that. They've rewritten a program and hasn't gotten completely come out yet, but yeah, they're going more to that.

Dominic (46:18): I like it. I like clicking through the stuff and learning about it. And at this point now in our like careers and stuff, like training is like I mean, you teach it now, so it's like the airplanes are so similar.

Mike (46:30): Once you learn a turbine, you know, once you learn a turbine, you know how it works, you know this, it's they're all, you know, there's different things that are a little different, but they're all similar.

Unknown Speaker (46:40): I was telling the guys at the Y today that I started doing the learning the airplane and they're like, oh, that's cool. And I was like, yep. I was like, I know how to work the oven. And then one one of the old timers goes, shouldn't you learn how to work the landing gear first? And I was like, landing gear, spinning gear.

Dominic (46:53): We gotta learn how to cook that barbecue, baby. That's what matters. Hey, if you got something you wanna talk about with us, send us in a text. It's (203) 699-6792, and let us know what you wanna hear about because we wanna hear what you have say. And if you missed anything else in there, go to the website.

Dominic (47:13): It's www.theblackboxaviationpodcast.com, and that will have anything you need to know. We're on YouTube. We got the video on Spotify, and then Apple's gonna bring video. They have it now, but our platform that we use is gonna gonna bring it up soon, so we'll be able to put video on Apple soon as well. Mike, you want anything else you wanna talk

Unknown Speaker (47:35): about or bring up? No.

Unknown Speaker (47:36): Wrap this one up.

Unknown Speaker (47:37): I think we're good.

Dominic (47:38): Should we put a pretty bow on it and call it quits?

Unknown Speaker (47:40): Let's call it quits.

Unknown Speaker (47:42): Alright, my good show. I'll talk to you later, man. See you.

Speaker 2 (47:44): You've been listening to the Black Box Aviation Podcast. Real pilots, real stories, and aviation news the way it's actually talked about in the cockpit. If you like what you heard, make sure to like, subscribe, and follow so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, keep the blue sign up, and we'll see you at altitude.