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Speaker 1: To I thirty here fifty five or see the talk station.
Speaker 1: I'm very happy Thursdays, last Friday, Eve. You love this
Speaker 1: time of the week, and of course timing couldn't be better.
Speaker 1: A man in very, very high demand. I heard media
Speaker 1: aviation r expert Jay Ratliffin was seven hundred plus stations
Speaker 1: throughout the nation. I bet you are in high demand. Jay,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show, my friend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the phone started ringing at like eleven o'clock last
Speaker 3: night through the night, about every ten minutes for most
Speaker 3: of the morning and the day. It's TV and radio stuff.
Speaker 3: So it's a I wish it had been any other
Speaker 3: topic because Brian, we've not had I've not had to
Speaker 3: talk about a plane crash in the United States for
Speaker 3: sixteen years.
Speaker 1: I know. I mean even brought that up and I
Speaker 1: was like knocking wood here in my studio or knocking fur.
Speaker 3: NC go too, and I'm sure a lot of people
Speaker 3: were frowning at me. But now you got to get
Speaker 3: back to the Colgan Air crash. It was February of
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine. We had the crash in Buffalo
Speaker 3: that killed forty nine passengers somebody on the ground, and
Speaker 3: it's it's been We did have a passenger that died
Speaker 3: on a Southwest flight we did have a couple of
Speaker 3: people that died in the Asiana crash in San Francisco,
Speaker 3: but for the most part, we've not had a plane
Speaker 3: crash that we've ever had to talk about. And of
Speaker 3: course that ended last night and the questions abound, and
Speaker 3: obviously we'd have very very few answers. But what we
Speaker 3: do know is that there is a very specific designated
Speaker 3: visual corridor where helicopters are allowed to operate up and
Speaker 3: down the Potomac River. So it's an area where if
Speaker 3: you were a helicopter pilot, you are flying under visual
Speaker 3: flight rules. You are required obviously of NonStop communication with
Speaker 3: air traffic control, but you're also responsible for making sure
Speaker 3: that you get adequate separation between you and other aircraft.
Speaker 3: That's what visual flight rules dictate. You as the pilot
Speaker 3: and command have to make sure that that is done.
Speaker 3: And that's the case, and that's what this military flight
Speaker 3: was operating under. You then have the American Airlines Regional Jet,
Speaker 3: which was a pas Say Airlines, which is based in Dayton,
Speaker 3: is on their final approach coming in from Wichita, and
Speaker 3: they've got sixty passengers on board crew of four. They're
Speaker 3: going through their flight. You know, the last moments of flight,
Speaker 3: the most critical moments of flight, as you and I've
Speaker 3: talked about five hundred feet either taken off or landing,
Speaker 3: a lot that's going on. They're very locked into every
Speaker 3: specific little detail they need to have, and then all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, the two aircraft occupy the same area
Speaker 3: at the same time. What we do know is that
Speaker 3: air traffic control did reach out to the military aircraft saying,
Speaker 3: do you have visual of the American Airlines jet? Now, Brian,
Speaker 3: here's one of the many, many, mini, many questions I
Speaker 3: have is that communication took place seconds before impact. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And my thought is, why do you ask a question
Speaker 3: that's going to require a response for you then to
Speaker 3: give evasive instructions when time is of the essence. That
Speaker 3: should not have been a question me. It should have been,
Speaker 3: you know, take evasive action or whatever they needed to
Speaker 3: do to get that aircraft out the way. Because if
Speaker 3: I've got a regional jet on final and I've got
Speaker 3: a military black Hawk helicopter, I know which of the
Speaker 3: two is going to be making the last minute maneuver.
Speaker 3: It's going to be that military crew, right, because that's
Speaker 3: the type of aircraft they're in and that's what it's
Speaker 3: designed to do. Now, we don't know if there was
Speaker 3: previous conversations with that military training flight. We don't know
Speaker 3: what conversations, if any, were going on with the flight
Speaker 3: crew of American Airlines. Now, I do know that they
Speaker 3: communicate on different frequencies. When the military is talking to
Speaker 3: the air traffic control, they use a VHF frequency. When
Speaker 3: they're talking to pilots of commercial airlines, it's VHF, meaning
Speaker 3: that the conversations that took place between that military black
Speaker 3: Hawk crew and air traffic control would not have been
Speaker 3: heard overheard by the American Airlines crew at all because
Speaker 3: they were on a completely different frequency.
Speaker 2: Well, and.
Speaker 1: You know, there's video of it. It's almost impossible to believe.
Speaker 1: It's hard to watch, quite honestly, that helicopter Terrific just
Speaker 1: straight line ran into the airplane.
Speaker 3: And those aircraft are designed with this panoramic view for
Speaker 3: all the obvious tactical reasons you would have on a
Speaker 3: military aircraft, and so they can see everything around them.
Speaker 3: The problem is that at night, especially if you're wearing goggles,
Speaker 3: as many of them do, you've got all of these
Speaker 3: lights because that is such a densely populated area, You've
Speaker 3: got all kinds of things that are kind of competing
Speaker 3: for your attention, so to speak, and the likelihood that
Speaker 3: you might lose track of a nearby aircraft that's coming
Speaker 3: in for landing bright as possible. And that's the reason
Speaker 3: that I have to go back to air traffic control
Speaker 3: because they see everything, and they're the ones that are
Speaker 3: ultimately responsible for the management of that airspace and keeping
Speaker 3: all of those planes safely apart and all those aircraft
Speaker 3: and distance where there's not going to be any danger
Speaker 3: to any of the particular airplanes or aircraft and their inhabitants.
Speaker 3: And here we had passengers that were put at risk
Speaker 3: and we don't know. In the National Transportation Safety Board,
Speaker 3: who I'm a huge fan of, they will get to
Speaker 3: the bottom of it. They will do their due diligence,
Speaker 3: They will dig through everything. They will find out the
Speaker 3: mistake or mistakes that were made. We will learn from it.
Speaker 3: Then we will apply those mistakes. Well, hopefully they recommend
Speaker 3: it to the FAA and it's up to them what
Speaker 3: they do. But then we get to the point of
Speaker 3: trying to implement those changes, because as you and I've
Speaker 3: talked about in every accident. In your accident, you honor
Speaker 3: the lives of those that were lost by making the
Speaker 3: necessary changes so that you can prevent that kind of
Speaker 3: a situation from ever happening again. And we've got to
Speaker 3: do that here.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. It almost defies the odds that those two were
Speaker 1: able to run in each other, concern the speed that
Speaker 1: they were traveling, in the distance between the two, and
Speaker 1: they finally impacted. I'm just in a state of disbelief
Speaker 1: over the whole thing, Jay, So many many questions looming,
Speaker 1: and some are suggesting there's no way this was an accident,
Speaker 1: this was an intentional act, and you know, the rumors
Speaker 1: starts swirling and are.
Speaker 3: They well and they always do in a situation like this,
Speaker 3: And sadly, with social media, it's a fertile ground for
Speaker 3: a lot of that stuff to happen. And we'll know
Speaker 3: what's going to take place, and there's going to be
Speaker 3: a lot of transparency that's going to take place here,
Speaker 3: and I'm very confident that we're going to find out
Speaker 3: what happened. I don't now. Look, anytime there's a crash,
Speaker 3: the FBI is immediately involved because it's treated as a
Speaker 3: crime scene until we determine otherwise. Now, it was pretty
Speaker 3: clear here in the early ongoing that this was not
Speaker 3: a criminal event, so the FBI could kind of stand down.
Speaker 3: But the other issue is, you know, had any of
Speaker 3: the debris fallen into the non river park. The concern
Speaker 3: that we have from an investigative standpoint is people grab
Speaker 3: souvenirs and sometimes parts of an aircraft are removed from
Speaker 3: the scene. It's critical for the investigation. So not only
Speaker 3: are you involved in a search and rescue, but you're
Speaker 3: also making sure that any of the debris that falls,
Speaker 3: as we have with the commercial airline when Columbia came down,
Speaker 3: I mean, any of these investigations that take place of
Speaker 3: a type of aircraft, it's critical that the investigators have
Speaker 3: every single piece of information that they can have, and
Speaker 3: sometimes the black boxes will tell the story. Sometimes it's
Speaker 3: the wreckage that gives us the answers that we need.
Speaker 3: And that's why all of that is so critically important
Speaker 3: in the early stages of all this, so that all
Speaker 3: of that is contained, so that it's available for the
Speaker 3: investigators as they need it.
Speaker 1: Well, and I guess I must observe out louds and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it I don't think there's any question
Speaker 1: in anybody's mind how this tragedy happened. Two aircraft ran
Speaker 1: into each other in the in mid air.
Speaker 3: How many times have you and I talked about the
Speaker 3: near misses we've had at other airports across the country.
Speaker 3: And when I talk with pilots, they say, Jay, ask
Speaker 3: any of us your top five list of airports you
Speaker 3: don't want to fall into. Washington Reagan's always one of
Speaker 3: the five, because it's a very difficult thing. Now, there's
Speaker 3: one question here that I can't answer because it's outside
Speaker 3: my lane. But I know that on that regional jet,
Speaker 3: the Bombardier CRJ seven hundred, they have the t CAST system,
Speaker 3: you know, the traffic collision avoidance. Yeah, yes, But the
Speaker 3: problem is that requires a like transponder to be on
Speaker 3: the other airline.
Speaker 1: Oh and I.
Speaker 3: Don't think well, in fact, I'm pretty pretty confident here
Speaker 3: that's not the case. And the reason I'm confident is
Speaker 3: because that t CAST system would have alerted American Airlines
Speaker 3: flight crew of the presence of that aircraft, and you
Speaker 3: would have seen in the video some sort of last
Speaker 3: stitch moment movement, change of altitude, change of directions, something
Speaker 3: within that crew, and we didn't see it on the video,
Speaker 3: So that makes me think and again it's askedinine to
Speaker 3: draw any conclusions at this point, but they really didn't
Speaker 3: know what was taking place until they were right on
Speaker 3: top of it, and that point it was it was
Speaker 3: simply too late.
Speaker 1: It's just hard to get my head around that. And
Speaker 1: you might think that that system would not exist on
Speaker 1: a military aircraft anyway, because that would allow others to
Speaker 1: track where it is to get given times.
Speaker 3: And we don't want that on our military aircraft. And
Speaker 3: if that's the case, so be it. But that's one
Speaker 3: of the reasons, because that was the question I had,
Speaker 3: was would they have been alerted to this in any
Speaker 3: sort of way from the systems that are on board
Speaker 3: that state of the art aircraft and the Bombardier they're
Speaker 3: the ones that made the fifty passenger regional jets that
Speaker 3: we all were familiar with with Calm Air and the
Speaker 3: CRJA seven hundred is simply just a larger version of
Speaker 3: that Bombardier jet. So it's a great aircraft, state of
Speaker 3: the art. Crews love to fly them, incredibly dependable, they've
Speaker 3: got everything they need on them. But again that's dependent
Speaker 3: on a lot of other variables that have to exist
Speaker 3: with other aircraft.
Speaker 1: And as of last reporting on this, let's say that
Speaker 1: they found twenty seven of the bodies from the airline
Speaker 1: and one of the helicopter. One from the helicopter, so
Speaker 1: it's not gone full recovery mode. There is no no
Speaker 1: one believes anyone survived. This so truly a tragedy.
Speaker 3: Jay When you look at the video and you look
Speaker 3: at what took place, the explosion that happened when the
Speaker 3: two hit, it would be a miracle if anyone did survive. Now, look,
Speaker 3: I've seen some of the most horrific plane crashes that
Speaker 3: have happened where you would think nobody survived and there
Speaker 3: were survivors. So there's always going to be hope. But
Speaker 3: we're reaching that point where hope is running out and
Speaker 3: there's always room for a miracle. Will never sell God
Speaker 3: short on anything, you know that. But the bottom line
Speaker 3: here is that it just appears as though that all
Speaker 3: lives were lost, sixty four on the commercial jet and
Speaker 3: then three that we know of on the military side.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean, and you think of the people,
Speaker 3: and I'm thinking of also the American Airlines agents that
Speaker 3: are on the go team, because I was part of
Speaker 3: the go team on Northwest, which meant if there was
Speaker 3: a crash or an accident and there was a loss
Speaker 3: of life, the go team would be dispatched to the
Speaker 3: scene and each one of us would be assigned to
Speaker 3: family and we would work with that family through everything,
Speaker 3: getting their family members in, helping them collect the remains,
Speaker 3: all of the things that just are horrific to go through.
Speaker 3: But you know, those people are also being dispatched to
Speaker 3: help out as well because they've got to help these
Speaker 3: families that are going to be dealing with this not
Speaker 3: only now but for years. And our family lost somebody
Speaker 3: in a very public way. And when it's public, it's everywhere,
Speaker 3: and that just makes it impossible to get away from, yes,
Speaker 3: and it just makes it even more difficult so often
Speaker 3: for families to deal with. So, I mean, there's so
Speaker 3: many people to pray for here, because it's going to
Speaker 3: impact all kinds of people.
Speaker 1: Huh, ripple effect, it's profound unbelievable. Well, I wish we
Speaker 1: had a lighter topic to talk about it in the
Speaker 1: interest of adding some measure of lightheartedness, moving away from
Speaker 1: the tragedy, Let's just talk real quickly about since I
Speaker 1: know you're in high demand today, the ten year prison
Speaker 1: sentence of man God, what happened on that one Jay?
Speaker 3: This actually happened back in October. It was a man
Speaker 3: that was running to a Delta American flight in Dallas.
Speaker 3: And I understand, Brian, he was a very important individual.
Speaker 3: He doesn't need to wait in lines, so he ran
Speaker 3: to the front of the line past everybody, tried to
Speaker 3: push his way through the gate to board his flight.
Speaker 3: The poor gate agent is trying to explain to this
Speaker 3: idiot who did have alcohol involved. He was just the
Speaker 3: wrong gate. He was trying to get on the wrong plane.
Speaker 3: So he is directed to the other one, which was
Speaker 3: the correct one, and off he goes. He misses that
Speaker 3: flight because they won't let him on. He comes back
Speaker 3: and beats up the person who told him that it
Speaker 3: was the wrong gate, and other employees tried to get involved,
Speaker 3: and they got Some of these folks couldn't come back
Speaker 3: to work for several days, and he got to the
Speaker 3: point where he is now facing up potentially a ten
Speaker 3: year prison sentence and potentially a two hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars five and I hope he gets both here's
Speaker 3: here's my other aggravation. It's going to be negotiated down.
Speaker 3: He'll be a fraction of each for both, and he's
Speaker 3: going to be allowed to fly on any other airline
Speaker 3: he wants other than American airlines who will be banning forever.
Speaker 3: Why do we allow people that are this violent to
Speaker 3: fly on other US carriers after this happens. Shouldn't be
Speaker 3: the case. And it's one of the things you and
Speaker 3: I talk about so often.
Speaker 1: Amen to that well real quickly, how delays I imagine
Speaker 1: getting in and out of DC might be a little troubling.
Speaker 3: Today, Yeah, a lot. With all the obvious flight activity
Speaker 3: in that area, we're seeing delays there, and really the
Speaker 3: Northeast for the next maybe forty eight hours is going
Speaker 3: to be problematic because the conditions are only going to
Speaker 3: decrease over the next two days. So if you're scheduled
Speaker 3: to fly too or through anywhere in the Northeast, by
Speaker 3: all means, make sure the airlines have a way to get.
Speaker 1: Ahold of you. Appreciate the sound advice and the information,
Speaker 1: Jay Ratliffe, and off to your next appointed call, because
Speaker 1: I know they're lined up around the corner with you today. Jay,
Speaker 1: thanks for the time.
Speaker 3: Of sadly heads and stopped ringing. And I just wish
Speaker 3: we had something fun to talk about because I miss
Speaker 3: our fun conversation.
Speaker 1: We'll do it next week when the dust is settled
Speaker 1: a little bit from this tragedy. God bless you, Jay Ratler.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the time you spend my listeners with me
Speaker 1: every Thursday. I'll look forward to next Thursday already. Invest
Speaker 1: to health, you in your better half.
Speaker 3: Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 1: Uh take care brand Take Care eight forty four to
Speaker 1: fifty five kr CD talk stations. Stick around, It'll be
Speaker 1: right back after these brief words.
Speaker 3: Keep your stupid mouth shut
Speaker 1: Fifty five KRC