IHeartMedia Aviation Expert Jay Ratliff talks about the week in aviation

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Time for the nine first one forecasts.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Got a cold Dana hansday going up to twenty three
degrees uh sunny, though clowns coming in overnight down to
nine degrees. We got snow tomorrow about ten am and
about one to five inches go up to twenty eight degrees,
snow tapering off late evening and giving us an overnight
low of twenty and on Saturday, a partly cloudy day
high thirty.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Right now six time for traffic.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
From the UCL Tramping Center.

Speaker 4 (00:27):
U SEE Health Weight Loss Center offers comprehensive obesity care
and advance sergical expertise called five one three nine three
nine two two sixty three. That's nine three nine twenty
two sixty three. Southbound seventy one crews continue to work
with a couple of recks one below field Zirnle has
the left lane blocked off. The newest is near Stewart
and just after you get pass ken Wood there on

(00:49):
the right hand side. Northbound seventy five continues slow out
of Barlinger into town chuck ing Ramont fifty five k
R see the talk station.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Picked about the CAIRCD talk station always love this time
of week eight thirty every every Thursday the fifty About
Karac Morning Show. We get the benefit of hearing from
iHeart Meatia aviation expert Jay Ratlift Jay. Happy new year
to you, Welcome back to the morning show, and a new.

Speaker 5 (01:15):
Year to speak to my good friend Brian. I'm looking
forward to it. Imagine the fun we're going to have
this year.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Oh, it's a great time every week, regardless of what
we're talking about. Real quick here, because as I always
like to point out, you do trade stocks, and it's
your primary source of income, and you do a good
job of it, and you trade other I trade other
people how to do it, your method? But what the
hell happened to tech stocks yesterday? You read flagged me
and told me that a lot of them drop by
like fifty percent.

Speaker 5 (01:39):
Yeah, the Navidia CEO came out talking about the timeline
for a lot of the next wave, if you will,
some of the IT type technology, and it was considerably
longer than what a lot of people thought. And the
tech industry had been pushing up and up and up
during the excitement of everything. And when that came out,

(02:00):
you had some stocks that were priced at you know,
twenty dollars fifteen dollars five dropping forty and fifty percent yesterday,
And it was an absolute, just a bloodbath when you
saw these tech stocks taking the beating that they did.
The overall market was down just a little bit. But
you know, you're right. As far as me teaching students,

(02:20):
I've done it for fifteen years. But Brian, trying to
time the market is stupid. Yeah, when you try to
time specific stocks as we do, as Warren Buffett does
and everybody else, and you can hit an eighty percent
batting average, Yeah, there's a lot of money to be made.
So I felt really bad for the long term by
holding prey investors that were holding a significant chunk of
these tech stocks because before they knew what happened, that

(02:43):
part of their portfolio was taking an absolute beating, and
I hated to see it. But it's the other reminder
of why you know, I'll hold a stock for fifteen
or twenty minutes versus ten or twenty years because you
simply don't know what's coming, and that's the best way
to protect your portfolio.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Enough sound advice.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Moving over to aviation, and.

Speaker 5 (03:02):
I will add a ps, Brian, if I may in
five days of trading my portfolio is up twenty percent,
So I kind of like my approach versus what the
long term by holding pray stuff is because this could
be a tough year with that battle of inflation and
everything else.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
I'm still yet to.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Lick well, you know, it's actually I just glad you
brought that up.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Not to take this part of the conversation too long,
but did you train Senator Ron Wyden, Representative Morgan M. Gravy,
Nancy Pelosi, Representative Thomas Susie, Representative Kathy Manning, or Seth
Molten or Tina Smith and your methodology, because those members
of Congress and the senators, their portfolios went up by
let's see, Senator Ron Wyden one hundred and twenty three percent,

(03:43):
Morgan McGarvey one hundred and five percent, Nancy.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Flower how long of a period of time? Any year?

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Last year?

Speaker 3 (03:49):
Oh no, no, no, they they.

Speaker 5 (03:50):
Wouldn't have been mine because they might go lot more
than Heck no, I would not trade it. They would
have to contact me through an alias to get my help.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Brother, figure that we're working off insider information that the
likes of.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
You and illegal. You should go to jail for that.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
I know that's the only reason I bring it up
because that's exactly my conclusion. All right, what is what
these guys that were found dead on that Jet Blues
airplane they were up in the wheel well.

Speaker 5 (04:17):
They were and this happens from time to time. It
was a couple of weeks ago that we had a
United Airlines flight from Chicago, Chicago to Maui. Flight lands
in Maui, they found someone who died in that wheel well.
So it's like, how in the world is somebody able
to stroll across the tarmac in Chicago's O'Hare Airport or
JFK's airport in New York totally undetected and able to

(04:39):
crawl up in a wheel well, which you know when
you try to do that stunt, the fatality rates like
seventy eight percent.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
It's like a suicide mission.

Speaker 5 (04:47):
You're either going to get crushed because there's not enough room,
or you're going to die of hypothermia when the temperature
drops to fifty sixty seven degrees below zero during the
course of that flight and the unpressurized part of the aircraft.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
But what we're finding.

Speaker 5 (05:01):
Out on the Jet Blue situation was it may not
have been a JFK situation. Because brand apparently these bodies
had been decomposed to the point that they may have
been on there for several days lights leading up to that.
And I've had a few Jet Blue pilots that have
reached out to me saying, Jay, I understand that when
we do our walk around, there's a part of that
landing gear flap that closes that when we do our

(05:23):
walk around, we can't see back up in there, So
it would require a mechanic with a large ladder to
be up there doing an inspection on a specific system
that would cause them to be up there to determine
that somebody was in that particular part of the aircraft.
So it's not like we miss it when we do
our walk bys because we simply can't see that with
the way that that type of aircraft has part of

(05:45):
the landing gear door closed when the gear is deployed,
So you know, it's not a situation where they're missing
it on the walkaround. But if it was in Jamaica,
where we're thinking it may have been in Kingston, you know,
obviously the FAA will go there saying what kind of
of securities you have in place here to prevent this,
and ribly There's been times where flights from Africa, flights

(06:05):
from Europe have come into the United States and they've
dropped the landing gears to land at Newark or Kennedy
or wherever, and we have bodies.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
That fall out.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Well, that's what a lot of people wondering.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
I mean, if they were in there for like that
three days, the flight went from multiple locations to others,
there's multiple landings there. I'm surprised that the dead bodies
weren't shaken out at some point.

Speaker 5 (06:26):
It happens, and it's a horrific event, and you know,
you feel for obviously the individuals that lost their life,
and certainly for a lot of them in Africa and
other places that are trying to flee places where their
life is literally in danger, so they're willing to put
their life at risk, with most of them dying in
the process. But the point is that it represents a

(06:47):
huge lapse in security because had these individuals been terraced,
had been individuals intent on inflicting harm that can gain act.
This isn't Muscle Shows, Alabama, this isn't Evansville, Indiana. We're
talking about Chicago's hair Airport.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
It's happened in Kennedy. We have the attacks of nine
to eleven.

Speaker 5 (07:04):
JFK spent one hundred million dollars on a security upgrade
with you know, motion sensors and closed circuit cameras. And
in twenty twelve there was a jet scare that broke
down on the river. He climbed the fence, he walks
across two active runways, comes up to the terminal, walks
in a door, and is inside the terminal in his great, big,

(07:25):
bright yellow flotation device. He's dripping wet head to toe
and a Delta employee notices em then and then calls
the police. But that's the first time he was spotted
after going that entire distance across one of the busiest
international airports that we have in the country.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
So it's like, what's going on.

Speaker 5 (07:43):
With security if people are still able in Phoenix, in Chicago,
at any of these other airports, worthy're able to access
these aircraft and can't continue to happen.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Well, we got another jet Blue to the story to
talk about, plus the latest on the Korean plane crash
among other topics with Jay Rattle. If we'll return after
these brief.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Words, fifty five KARC.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
The Great American air For my buddy, I find five
KRCD talk station Brian Thomas with I heart meeting Aviation.
Next for Jay Rattler, sticking with Jet Blue and in
the category of idiots doing idiot things because they're idiots.
What's the story with his passenger opening up a plane
door while it's taxing.

Speaker 5 (08:22):
Well, the planes in Boston, you have passengers that are
in such a good mood, Brian. They're leaving that winter weather,
headed for San Juan, Puerto Rico, beautiful weather, a lot
of food, a lot of fun, and they're taxing for
takeoff and just looking forward to the flight and getting there.
When you have a boyfriend and girlfriend that are sitting
there and the girlfriend start starting to get text at

(08:42):
the boyfriend wants to see who it's from. She won't
show him, so he gets mad and says, I'll show you.
He gets up, walks over to the emergency exit, opens
up the door. Now the airplane's not pressurized, they've not
taken off, and all of the emergency slides are engaged.
So he opens up the exit, opens the door and boom,
it's deployed. Nobody can stop him in time, and all

(09:04):
of a sudden, the plane comes to a stop, every
passenger is impacted by at least an hour and a half.
It takes, normally from a mechanic standpoint, to replace one
of these slides once they've been deployed. And you have
one individual that's impacting that flight, and not only that,
with the flight getting into later into San Juan, if
the crew had a specific amount of time for the rest,
that means the originating flight to the next day is

(09:27):
also delayed, plus any other flight that aircraft is scheduled
for on that day. So you have one individual impacting
the lives of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people because,
as you mentioned, acting like an idiot. And I suspect
that Jet Blue will a ban this individual obviously from
flying Jet Blue for life. They will send him a
bill for the maintenance that was required to replace the slide,

(09:50):
and passengers on board could certainly sue him in civil
court if there were certain things they missed, like a wedding,
someone they're trying to reach before they passed, those kinds
of things because of the actions of one single person.
And I tell you it's a shame nobody tackled him
on the way to the door, because that's really the
only way you could have prevented this. But you know,

(10:12):
the flight intends will tell you to sit down, sit down,
sit down, And they don't think you're going to walk
over and grab the handle of the emergency exit and give.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
It a pull.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Well exactly, And you know, going to your point about
you wish someone had tackle them. That never wouldn't even
have crossed my mind, because.

Speaker 5 (10:26):
Across my mind, I can tell you that because I'm
thinking this guy's about to delay our flight big time.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Well, I mean that he would actually open the damn door.
You know, I see a guy walking toward the door
while it's taxing, and I just wouldn't what kind of
moron would even consider doing something like that. But you
do live in a world filled with morons, all right.
The Korean plane crash. What's going on with this one?

Speaker 3 (10:49):
The black boxes?

Speaker 5 (10:50):
I'm really interested to hear Brian, because of course there's
a lot to this particular emergency situation where that plane crash.
We lost one hundred and seventy nine lives, two peoples,
the two crew members that were at the back of
the airplane.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
But we're trying to figure out why in the world.

Speaker 5 (11:04):
The crew didn't deploy the landing gear because when you
are making an emergency landing like this, apparently on one engine,
you would lower the landing gear so that you at
least have the ability to control the breaking of the
aircraft after it's landed. And for some reason, this airplane
came in with the landing gear up, not deployed. The flaps,

(11:27):
which Boeing calls for being set at forty degrees to
try to give yourself drag when you've got a belly landing,
also not deployed. And apparently the reverse thrusters that were engaged,
which is the process you use when you land, was
done on the engine that may have been the one
that had the bird impact. So there's just so many
things there that just don't make sense. And the flight

(11:48):
data recorder, one of the two black boxes, was damaged.
It's gone to the National Transportation Safety Board in DC
to be fixed.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Now.

Speaker 5 (11:55):
This past weekend, the South Korean officials were converting the
cockpit voice recorder that would be recording the voices and
the alarms and everything going on on the flight deck.
They were converting that into audio files and they're reviewing
that now and I suspect that they're going to be
pretty forthcoming with the investigation, but there have been times

(12:17):
as impossible as is to believe. And I've been saying
this since the crash, that Cruis have forgotten to land
lower the landing gear. Now we don't know if if
in the because the landing gear, even if you have
no hydraulics, it's a simple matter of unlocking the three
landing gears and they're.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
Gravity deployed, they fall, they were locking the position, you're
good to go.

Speaker 5 (12:36):
You don't need hydraulics for that to take place. So
the idea that that didn't happen is raising all kinds
of questions. But that's not what killed everybody.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
What killed everyone was asked, and I why the did you.

Speaker 5 (12:50):
That thing would have stopped at tank and it's at
the end of the runway, and all it's doing is
holding up the ils antennas, which at every other airport
seemingly in the world, that's held up by things that
break away in the event they're impacted by a ground
vehicle or aircraft. They're not designed to stop a tank
like this concrete wall was. And when they hit that,

(13:11):
game over everybody dies and they shouldn't have.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
We've had so many.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
Belly landings where the aircraft goes and goes and goes,
it slows to a stop and then everybody gets off
minimal injuries, if any at all.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
Here we had a situation where the crew brought.

Speaker 5 (13:24):
It down level, they would have just continued you saw
it going down the runway, yes, breaking apart, wasn't on fire.
It would have continued to skid as those airplanes are
designed to do, thankfully to the construction that Airbus and
Boeing have on these planes, and it would have just
simply come to a stop and everybody would have got off.
So we're seeing right now that airports around the world.

(13:46):
China is leading the way on this, doing a safety
assessment on all of their airports, making sure that they
don't have anything at the end of the overrun section
at the end of a runway that an aircraft could
impact that could cause this kind of an outcome. And
you know, the best way for us to honor the
lives of those that were lost, and this is so
incredibly tragic, is to make sure that we avoid this

(14:07):
tide of a situation in the future. And it was
that wall that was the problem. Now, obviously, if the
crew forgot to lower the landing gear, or there was
a mechanical situation, or if one of the pilots experienced
a medical episode in the middle of this, all of
that's working against them, and they might have been able
to stop the aircraft otherwise before it got to that part.
So there's probably going to be a lot of contributing factors,

(14:29):
as tends to be the case with most of these
accident investigations. But as with every one of them, we're
going to learn and I'm glad to see the South
Korean officials are not holding everything close to the vest.
They've asked Boeing to come in and assist the engineers.
They've asked for the National Transportation Safety Board here from
the US to come in. They're incorporating a lot of

(14:49):
different agencies, and I think that probably means that when
the information starts forthcoming in the next few days on
what the initial observations are, and again the the investigation
will go for a year year and a half, we'll
have a pretty good idea of what some of the
initial findings are that will be you know, that'll lead
the investigation. But it couldn't have happened, and that will

(15:11):
have happened the entire reason, yep I, I could not
believe my eyes when I saw that. And among the things,
don't build a tank stopping wall at the end of
a runway, and don't build a nuclear plant in a
tsunami zone. Let's pause for a moment. We'll bring Jay
that lift back.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
We got the latest on Boeing plus hub delays, and
I suspect there might be some West coast delays. We'll
hear from Jay on that one in just a second.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Fifty five car the talk station. I wish i'd gotten treated.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Haut A forecast twenty three for the high today with
sunny sky is down at nine overnight with clouds snow
Tomorrow aum about ten am one to five inches, twenty
eight degrees overnight low of twenty and on Saturday it'll
be dry, a higher thirty and partly cloudy, closing out.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
At eight degrees.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
Time for final traffic.

Speaker 4 (15:54):
Probably you see health Tramphic center, you see Health weight
Pass Center offers comprehensive Obcitycaren and Van Sergic Co expertise
called five one three nine three nine two two sixty three.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
That's nine nine twenty two. Sixty three left lane.

Speaker 4 (16:07):
Remains blocked with the southbound seventy one just below Fields thirdle.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
There's an accident. He's found on the Reagan Highway.

Speaker 4 (16:13):
John Stampaue got passed seventy five and the RAM from
Donaldson to southbound seventy five is blocked off in northern
Kentucky due to an accident. Chuck Ingram on fifty five
Tierra see the talk station.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Hey fifty eight fifty about KIRCD talk station Bryan Thomas
closing it out with iHeart Media Aviation Expert. We do
the segment every Thursday at a thirty and I third
certainly enjoy talking with Jay.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
Jay.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
What is the story latest story on Boeing? Are they
stepping up efforts, surprise inspections or something.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
How's this working? Yeah, we're coming up.

Speaker 5 (16:47):
In fact, we've passed the one year anniversary of the
Alaska Airlines door plug thing blowing out, and you and
I were talking a year ago last week where Boeing
had sent out a memo saying that some mechanics for
Airlines had found bolts in nuts that were missing and
loose on some of the rudder control systems of the
seven thirty seven and how their airline mechanics maybe should

(17:08):
keep an eye on that when they're doing their ongoing maintenance.
So that made us think what in the world's going on?
And then the door plug happened where it fell off
the last Airlines flight. Thank god nobody got killed or
seriously injured. And the FAA has stepped in now saying
that the oversight that they kicked in after this last
year has continued. In fact, they've gone on to stress

(17:29):
that they are stepping up their unannounced inspections, which I
love because I tell you, anytime that you're working at
an airport and an FA inspector shows up and announced,
everything stops and they're there to make sure that everything's
being done as it should. Now, five years ago we
were told by the Federal ava's administration they were going
to be on top of Boeing like never before. We

(17:49):
had nothing to worry about the craft they had pulled
previous with the Boeing Max situation, the two plane crashes
withholding information criminally from the FAA from airlines from pilots
was a thing of the past. Well, we have found
over the last five years, with forty some whistleblowers that
that really hasn't happened. So the FAA is trying to
make sure that moving forward from this point that they

(18:12):
are on top of things, and Brian, I really hope
that they are, because you're talking about matters of safety
to the point that some Boeing employees won't even get
on their own airplanes. Now, I think it extreme, but
it underscores just how concerned a lot of these individuals
are when in the past, according to the reports, as
you and I talked about, the airplane would run out

(18:32):
of parts, and to keep the airplane moving through the
production line, employees were told to go to the scrap heap,
pick out the best parts that's failed, bring it back
and guess it's painted with red paint, but get all
the red paint off and then put it on the aircraft.
And a lot of these employees are like, no, I mean,
that's a failed part. It's in the junk pile for
a reason. But you know, these are the kind of

(18:53):
antics that apparently had been going on for a number
of years, and the FAA is coming out saying that,
you know, we're going to make sure that this doesn't
happen again. Boeing when they brought their employees back from
the strike, they did wait an entire month before they
resumed operation of the production line to make sure that
these safety issues were addressed. I like to see that,

(19:14):
but it's gonna be five years before you're gonna ask
me if I'm comfortable with war Boeing zat because I
believed them five years ago. And I look like an
absolute idiot when I believed them with all their paragraphs
of promise, because they didn't do a single thing. They talked, Oh,
they're gonna get rid of the CEO, that's gonna change things.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
No I didn't. Oh we're gonna return to the days
of old. No they didn't.

Speaker 5 (19:33):
They didn't do a stupid thing, and if anything, they
got worse. And that's one of the reasons that to me,
I'm just furious. And obviously I'm hoping the FAA this
time is serious about doing their job and making sure
that Boeing is doing theirs.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Well, you know, as you're saying that, and I approve,
I guess on some level, appreciate your confidence in the
FAA's ability to actually do its task properly. But you're
you're yeah, you're relying on government employees.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
Some of them are really really.

Speaker 5 (20:01):
Good at what they do, and you just don't have
enough of them. And sometimes in the past, part of
the certification process that was stamped by a Boeing inspector
was actually allowed to be done by Boeing employees and
where they would oh, yeah, that's fine, boom and they
would just stamp it as okay, certified and it would
roll through the process without an FA inspector everling eyes

(20:22):
on the work that was being done.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
Now that is.

Speaker 5 (20:24):
Stopped because we've taken the keys away from Boeing as
far as calling the shots on that. But I mean,
there's so many different indications where you know, the traveling
public simply is still not comfortable with Boeing. I've gotten
emails for the last year from individuals all over the
country that are traveling saying, Jay, I'm going to be
looking for air bus s iteneraries or bombardier or some

(20:46):
other type of equipment because I'm not comfortable flying Boeing.
Now again, I think that's extreme. When Cherry and I fly,
if it's a Boeing aircraft, we jump on. But that's
not to say that I'm not slightly concerned because some
of these things that allowed to happen, and the concern is,
are any of these failed parts on these airplanes I'm boarding.
So yeah, obviously I'm a little bit concerned.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
As we go, fair enough, I would expect some flight
delays on the West coast. What's the story on the
flight situation today?

Speaker 5 (21:15):
We are seeing impact into Lax just a bit, But Brian,
the real problem children of the day are going to
be Dallas and Houston. Especially Dallas. We're seeing some icing
and some rain that's going to be coming through in
snow that are going to be impacting the areas of Dallas,
and that's going to be the one impacted the most.
Houston's also with United Airlines going to see some issues

(21:35):
as they storm system a violent one pushes up through there.
If you're flying American airlines today, get to the airport early.
They may do what's called an online reroute where you
may be scheduled to fly through Dallas and they say, hey,
we can get you to your destination through Chicago or
through another American hub to avoid that mess. So getting
to the airport extra early can certainly work to your

(21:55):
advantage because Dallas is going to be an area that
you know a lot of people.

Speaker 3 (21:59):
Are going to be trying to avoid.

Speaker 5 (22:01):
Unfortunately, January is a lighter travel month, so it's nice
that these storms didn't hit us two weeks ago or
even a week ago, when every single flight was overfilled.
Today it's a lot easier, and it's going to give
the agents an opportunity to better take.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
Care of us.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Fair enough, Jay Rattler, appreciate the information passed along to
my listeners and our conversation every week. We'll do it
again next Thursday. Between now and then, best to health
you and your better half and happy New Year again.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
And to you is are my friend. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Thanks brother Dave Williams Taxpayer Protection Lines. You need to
get a chance to listen to him. Putting a lame
in lame Congress comment on Festivus report, Donald and the
Americans for Prosperity is laid out the twenty twenty five
policy Agenda. Big Things coming to Ohio. Thanks Americans for Prosperity.
You can podcast that at fifty five carecy dot Com
Tune tomorrow Tech Friday with Dave Hatter. I have a

(22:47):
wonderful day, folks. Thanks again. Joe Strecker executive producer. Extraordinary
Folks stick around Lenbeck's coming.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
Up, Counting down, Let's go as we welcome back President Trump.

Speaker 5 (22:57):
The next four years are just gonna be In credit.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Log fifty five Care the Talk Station. This report is
sponsored by mattress firm Square