One Strike And You’re Out?

I was kind of agnostic on whether senior government officials presiding over aviation needed to be pilots. There were always multiple complaints about whoever took the reins of the various departments and few of those complaints ever had anything to do with aviation.

Overwhelmingly the job of DOT Secretary, FAA Administrator, etc., is about leadership and, we hope, integrity. In these increasingly polarized times, the appointments tend to be a little more on the nose but frankly the overwhelming nature of the tasks at hand have suppressed that political undercurrent under a barrage of issues that quickly overwhelm the poor saps who take these jobs.

So, it might be a little unfair to judge DOT Secretary Sean Duffy's performance in his first month on the job when you consider the month it has been. If you've gotten this far in this little screed I don't have to tabulate the mayhem that has ensued, entirely coincidently, with the transition to the new administration. And, no, we can't even blame it on Elon. He's barely scratched Duffy's portfolio.

Duffy, for the record, has zero aviation experience, let alone any stick time. That certainly doesn't mean he's stupid or doesn't have lots to offer in the role. But he's been so busy looking at accident scenes and offering what he can on how the department is supporting the investigations we don't really have measure of him on matters of concern for this crowd.

But last week we may have gotten a glimpse of his general approach to the job when he was asked about his immediate reaction to the incident with the Flexjet Challenger and Southwest 737 at Midway. Right after the mishap, which we likely would never have learned anything about save for some plane spotters exceeding their wildest expectations, he posted on X that it's “imperative that pilots follow the instructions of air traffic controllers. If they do not, their licenses will be pulled.”

In a subsequent interview with NBC, he was asked if he meant it and emphatically replied "Hell, yes." You have to watch the video to see the body language that accompanies the statement. He mimics an umpire throwing a ballplayer or coach out of the game. To me, that meant the pilot would have his career summarily dissolved through an emergency revocation. A quick poll of the people who put up with me and wonder why I show them this stuff found them in agreement.

So when I wrote the story, I used the term "revocation" to describe Duffy's intentions for blundering pilots,* but a few hours later I had second thoughts. That term had never actually been used by Duffy but it seemed so obviously what he meant.

Then it occurred to me that Duffy, if he was a pilot, probably would have used "revoke" but didn't know the connotation it carried. The FAA can temporarily "pull" a pilot's flight privileges via a suspension and he or she can resume flying when the timeout is over.

But only in the most serious cases, almost always involving contempt for the rules and danger to people, will it "revoke" a certificate. A revocation erases that pilot's flight record. After a year, he or she can apply for a new certificate but it means starting over with a student certificate, followed by private and higher certificates and all the hour requirements and training time that go with them.

I know nothing about the Flexjet pilots but I guarantee that their entire lives to that point had been focused on getting them to that runway intersection on a cold Chicago morning, and what Duffy seemed to suggest was that all that should be vaporized for an incident that harmed no one, wasted a bit of jet fuel and probably earned the Southwest pilots some well-deserved high-fives.

So, I've asked DOT what, exactly, Duffy meant when he threw his thumb over his shoulder in front of the cameras in an Oklahoma City hangar last week. The answer, if I get one, will give us a clue about how all this will go down for the next few years.

I'll let you know.