Delta Air Lines Forced To Correct Misinformation About Pilots In Crash

What a sad day when Delta Air Lines is forced to issue a statement seeking to extinguish the malicious spread of misinformation online about the identity of the pilots involved in the Endeavor Air CRJ-900 crash in Toronto. What is it about the rabid ideological division in the USA that has triggered such a retreat into a twilight zone of blatant falsehood?

Delta Air Lines Corrects Misinformation About Pilots Of Delta Flight 4819

On Thursday evening, Delta issued the following update on the crash of DL4819:

Endeavor Air and Delta are correcting disinformation in social media containing false and misleading assertions about the flight crew of Endeavor Air 4819.

– Captain: Mesaba Airlines, a progenitor company of Endeavor Air, hired the captain in October 2007. He has served both as an active duty Captain and in pilot training and flight safety capacities. Assertions that he failed training events are false. Assertions that he failed to flow into a pilot position at Delta Air Lines due to training failures are also false.

– First Officer: Hired in January 2024 by Endeavor Air and completed training in April. She has been flying for Endeavor since that time. Her flight experience exceeded the minimum requirements set by U.S. Federal regulations. Assertions that she failed training events are false.

Both crew members are qualified and FAA certified for their positions.

What would prompt such a statement? Well, as you might infer from the statement, certain corners of the internet have gone crazy with unsupported claims that both pilots were unqualified DEI hires.

Per Delta, the captain has been flying commercially since 2007: over 17 years. Contrary to the salacious innuendo, he did not have training failures. The first officer was very junior, though of course she had 1,500 hours of flight time before ever sitting down in the right seat in the flight deck.

The female pilot was junior. That’s. All. We. Know.

So can people please stop saying that DEI caused this crash? At least for now?!

Unless you have proof otherwise, a female pilot is not a DEI hire. Do you have any idea how desperate regional carriers are for pilots with enough hours to fly a regional jet? The peak of the pilot shortage may be over, but there’s still a great deficit of pilots on the regional level and carriers will take who they can get.

Could it be that the female pilot was inexperienced and crashed the plane? Yes…that is a possibility. But that does mean she was a “DEI hire” (whatever that actually means…)? No!

And while I will not dignify the mistruths online about these pilots, I understand why some take offense to posts like this:

Buckle up ladies and gentlemen, your flight is unmanned today. #girlpower

: Caitlyn M., FO, CRJ-900 pic.twitter.com/vL7ec2P3fX

— Endeavor Air (@EndeavorAir) June 6, 2022

(to which I would direct you to this post)

But it’s far too early to make such speculations and the idea that a female pilot is somehow unfit because she is female is disgusting.

Let’s let the investigators do their work…the truth will come out and I will certainly condemn Delta and Endeavor if it somehow can be shown that the crash was due to pilot error and the pilot landing the aircraft was “unqualified” but given a pass due to DEI.

But absent such evidence, we should all just wait for a clearer picture to emerge of what happened and stop the self-serving echo-chamber of lies about how the pilots and their qualifications. Please.

image: Delta