IHeartMedia Aviation Expert Jay Ratliff talks about the week in aviation

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Tiver the weather today.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
We get clouds up until around one o'clock and that's
when the sun shows up high at fifty five today.
The clouds over nact down to thirty mostly sunny skies
tomorrow with the higher forty two thirty three overnight low
with clouds and then some rain in the daytime sometime
on Saturday. Anyway, expects some rain Saturday hids in the
mid fifties. It's forty four right now, in time for trafficks.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
From the UC Health Tramphink Center. Heart disease is the
leading cause of death in the US. If you're at risk,
trust the experts and you see Health for Innovative and
Personal Eyes Heartcare. Expect more at U seehealth dot com.
A bit of good news. They've opened up the right
lane on westbound Fort Washington Way. That's helping traffic off
of southbound seventy one. Still blocked off inbound Columbia Parkway

(00:49):
and you have to exit the third street. That's a
rex southbound seventy five at Desert Charles in the center
lanes Chuck Ingramont fifty five KR.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
See the talk station. I think about case the talks today. Jay.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
It's Thursday's time for iHeart Mediavas next Bird Jay Ratliffe.
Love having Jar on the program. I was like wrapping
up the Thursday morning shows usually on a lighthearted note,
although of late we've had some pretty bad aviation news.
But real quick, before we get to Jay, I want
a special shout out thank you to not only everybody
who went to Listener Lunch yesterday. I had a fantastic time,
but if you didn't get a chance to listen every
Wednesday at seven oh five we hear from Jack Atherton.

(01:23):
He's a brilliant, brilliant guy, great commentator. Jack in his
beautiful better half Ainsley made it to lunch yesterday and
that was quite a trip for them. Shout out to
Jack and Amesley. Great ceing Eesjy. I had quite a
few listeners chime in to me and letting me know
that the how pleased they were to meet you. One
of my fraternity brothers, Maggie. They said you are two
of the nicest people he's ever met, and I can

(01:44):
only agree with that all day long. One of the
other nicest people ever meet, Jay Ratliff, Thanks for biting
by my words there and welcome back to the morning show.
It's always my pleasure to have you on the show.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
Well, Jack and I have teamed up for some things
over the years, so believe me, anytime you want to
brag on heat and is lovely White by all means
do so.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
They are truly fantastic folks. All right, what's the latest?
We have two obviously terrible aviation incidents to talk about.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
What's the latest on the DC.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
A plane running into the helicopter, or as the case,
maybe the helicopter running into the plane, which seems to
be what's happening. The suggestion I've read is that the
helicopter was flying at too high of an altitude.

Speaker 4 (02:27):
It was, yeah, and the initial focus for the National
Transportation Safety Board was to recover the wreckage of the
downed airliner first and then go after retrieving the helicopter.
And that's what they're in the process of doing now.

(02:47):
Because they were two separate spots where they came down,
and the priority was the airliner. They've been able to
take care of that. They've got the black boxes, they'll
be able to determine some and a little disappointed that
the black Hawk did not have a black box type
of component that would allow them to listen to the

(03:09):
conversations that were ongoing and the Yeah, some black Hawks
have it, and I was hopeful that this was the case.
But the latest word that we had, and of course, Brian,
it may change if my information is wrong, but it
does not have that capability, which means that they're going
to the investigators are going to have to rely on

(03:30):
the back and forth, the time stamps, the different types
of things that they've got from a data standpoint to
try to figure out why that aircraft was where it
was supposed to be or where it was. Because you're right,
when the crash first took place and I heard the altitude,
I thought they can't be right because they've got that
ceiling of two hundred feet and I can't see any

(03:52):
reason why any helicopter crew would go above that, knowing
that the commercial lanes that are there, especially going and
had a runway three to three there.

Speaker 5 (04:01):
So, yeah, the.

Speaker 4 (04:03):
Investigation continues there. And we did also find out that
the NTSB told us that the jetliner did try to
elevate at the last moment, apparently when they first saw
the helicopter, and of course at that point in time,
it was simply too late for them to do anything.

Speaker 5 (04:20):
Brian.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
The just the weirdest thing is when you look at
some of these different videos, it's not like the helicopter
came up from underneath and the collision took place.

Speaker 5 (04:31):
They were not pointed at each.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
Other, but I mean they almost were looking at each
other as they were going in, making you think, what
in the world was the flight crew of the helicopter
not looking at exactly to see it, because it just.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
It was like a dark being thrown in a dark board.
It was dead on collision. I mean, you couldn't if
you wanted to, You couldn't hit it more directly.

Speaker 4 (04:55):
If this were a terrorist attack, that's exactly you know,
I think out would look. Not that I'm suggesting an
anyway that's this, but it's the crew's attention or whatever
was elsewhere. And again we don't know if there was
a mechanical situation that was that the crew was battling
at the time that might have taken their attention away
from some of the critical moments of flight.

Speaker 5 (05:14):
There what we just don't know.

Speaker 4 (05:16):
I do know that my confidence in the National Transportation
Safety Board is unbelievably high. And if there's a group
of men and women. They're going to be able to
find out exactly what happened and give to the Federal
Aviation Administration a list of recommendations on how we can
make aviation safer.

Speaker 5 (05:32):
They're going to be the ones that do it.

Speaker 4 (05:34):
But as I've told you before, my biggest fear is
we're going to discover that this accident was easily.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
And what you're suggesting is the negligence on the part
of the helicopter bolet.

Speaker 4 (05:49):
Yeah, and again it's an incredibly early statement to make,
but based on the evidence as we're seeing it now,
I mean, it's obvious that the RJ was where it
was supposed to be.

Speaker 5 (05:58):
The Americans final exactly where they were supposed to.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
We also can say that the helicopter crew was not
where they were supposed to. Now, again, that may be negligence,
it may be mechanical, it may be again the medical
episode involving one of the pilots that caused.

Speaker 5 (06:16):
That altitude deviation to take place. We don't know.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
But far too often in the history of aviation, when
you look at the decades and decades of as accidents
near accidents, the human element tends to come into play,
and almost all of them. It may not be the cause,
but it's a contributing cause many many times. And that's
why a lot of these well meaning individuals will say, Jay,
that's why we need to have airplanes with no pilots,

(06:43):
because then we can avoid these mistakes from being made
and make aviation safer.

Speaker 5 (06:47):
And of course I don't agree with that at all.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
But it is sad that there's always that human element
that seems to be there, which is why, you know,
you've always heard me say before this that we were
in going the safest there ever of commercial jet travel,
but we had to be incredibly vigilant to make sure
that that continued to be the case, because we get sloppy.
Human nature is just that we get complacent, we get

(07:11):
a little sloppy, and as a result, mistakes can take place.
And you know, we've already seen the FAA shut down
that corridor for the helicopter traffic there at the Regae
National Airport, which is good and that'll probably.

Speaker 5 (07:26):
Be prom in it, but I suspect that we're going
to also see.

Speaker 4 (07:29):
Some other recommendations that are going to be made, and then,
of course, you know, one of the things that just
drives me out of my mind is that the NTSB
may give the FAA fifteen different points, and the FAA
may implement one, maybe two. It's not a stamp approval

(07:49):
as you do all of them, because many times the
airline industry and their lobbying group and others can apply
a little pressure saying no, we don't want to do this, this,
and this, because it would cost too much more money,
and then it would cause a raise. We would have
to raise fares, and then that would be really bad
for the consumers. Let's not do that. That kind of garbage.
And where safety then becomes a you know, a negotiating

(08:12):
type of thing, it's just, oh, so, well, you know,
that's where we are in as far as the DC
the DC.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Craft, and we'll get to the Philly crasher when we
come back. But the bottom line is, I just can't
for the life we figure out how in the hell
it is that it was in any way, shape or
form the right thing to do to allow a military
helicopter to fly right there indirect on a final approach path.
Is there really a need to do that? You can't
just deviate a mile right or left and go around

(08:39):
that congested area.

Speaker 4 (08:41):
Whatever, Well, we keep most We keep most of them.
They keep them within the confines of the river, if
you will, going up and down through there. So that's
their corridor. And I mean there's nothing but military aircraft
up there.

Speaker 5 (08:53):
Uh, They're everywhere.

Speaker 4 (08:54):
And there's always been this this you know, combination, this
influx of both commerci and military aircraft. Normally, even though
there's occasionally where you have one that'll have to deviate
and go around or approach differently or cancel of takeoff,
it happens, but that happens at every airport. Most of
the time, this operates exactly as it's supposed to. In

(09:17):
this case, it didn't, and it with horrific.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Consequences, absolutely horrific.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Speaking horrific, the Philly crash, we'll talk about that, plus
a couple got sued by an airline costs a lot
of money. We'll also talk about Elon Musk ready to
make some technical upgrades air traffic control much needed, apparently
more with Jay Ratliffe coming up next, Don't Go.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
Away fifty five KRC run a business and not thinking
about it.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Continuing our conversation every Thursday for a few segments with
Jay Ratliff, which I truly appreciate any my listeners enjoy
hearing from you as well. Jay, Moving away from the
DC crash over to Philly crash, the one thing I
heard it was suggested is that there was a weight
shift which caused the plane to stop any further developments
beyond that speculation that was initially raised.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
Now that was that's still pretty much something that's being
looked at as probable. And I think the reason that
we so many of us went in that direction early
was the video of that aircraft coming out of the sky.
If that airplane takes off, loses its engines, it becomes
a glider. So at fifteen hundred feet you've got x

(10:25):
amount of distance before that airplane has to come down.

Speaker 5 (10:29):
But it's a controlled descent.

Speaker 4 (10:31):
This airplane just fell out of the sky, which means
either structurally something came off the aircraft disrupting the lift
and down it came with the pilots not having an
ability to control it, or something happened to that center
of gravity that shifted at a critical moment, And of
course weight and balance being everything on an aircraft. If
you've got an airplane at that critical moment that's taking

(10:52):
off and you've got a sudden and unexpected shift of
gravity in that aircraft. What could take place is it
could actually cause the airplane to change its inclination to
the air over the wing then gets disrupted. The lift
is no longer there, and the airplane goes into a stall.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
It just falls like it falls like a dead weight
out of the sky. Then it does.

Speaker 5 (11:14):
It does.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
And if you were you know, altitude twenty thirty thousand feet,
no problem. You just point the nose down, you build
up the speed, and the airflow over the wings re zumed,
lift is restored and off you go. But if you're
fifteen hundred feet Brian, there's nothing you can do. And
some of the most horrific if you YouTube searched, there's
a seven forty seven the cargo plane that was taking

(11:36):
off that had that exact same thing happen, and it's
a horrific video to watch. But the airplane takes off
and it has that shift of gravity where the cargo
came loose, and you can see the moment at a
very low altitude that that aircraft the crew lost complete
control and that airplane just falls right out of the sky.
But that's why everything is strapped down. Everything is it

(12:02):
just it's there's just no room.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
For air No, and you know what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
You are also pointing out the importance of the folks
that load the plane, you know, the common laborer who
are putting things in the cargo bay of the plane.
They are critical the life saving saving lives on that,
whether it's the crew or the entire list of passengers.
That it's just an amazing reality that a shifting weight

(12:28):
in the bottom of the airplane could just make it
drop like a rock.

Speaker 4 (12:31):
If it's significant in size, yes, if you know, if
you've got six bags rolling around, that's not gonna be
an issue. But if you've got something of substantial weight
that shifts quickly from one side to the next, yeah,
it's going to be something that could just caut some
some big time problems for the flight crew. And sadly,
if it's a little altitude, there's nothing that they can

(12:54):
do about it. And that crew knew that there was
nothing they could do about it. And I tell you
it's just when you look at you know, aviation and things.
That's one of the reasons that weight and balance is
so critical, where everything is measured and weighed so that
we know wait wise, how much fuel, how much cargo,
which part of the aircraft it's in, how many passengers are.

(13:15):
And that's why sometimes when you are on a flight
that maybe isn't full, you'll have the pass the flight
tends come back and say, hey, we need you six
people to move to the back of the airplane, or
we need you to come over here. And what they're
doing is at the pilot's instruction, distributing that weight a
little bit better throughout the cabin right so that it's
going to make it easier for the crew to maintain

(13:38):
control of the flight. So yeah, if you're ever asked
to move, please please don't throw a fIF Please please
don't throw fIF You.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Know what, you're doing absolutely nothing today to make me
want to fly. I know this is you and you
say flight it's all safe and compared to being in
a car and all that.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
I get it. I know the statistics, but jeez, little wise,
the smallest like.

Speaker 4 (14:00):
Going outside and getting struck by lightning twice in the
same day, twice in the same day. So I mean
that's you know, I will go out and get on
an airplane. I'll put my kids, my grandkids, my wife,
my mom, I mean without hesitation, but when I recognize
here in the United States we do it better than
anybody on the planet, and there's a lot of things

(14:22):
we can do better, and we will, but you know,
it's I'm just I'm just thrilled that we have this
dedication to safety as we have here in the United States,
because the mechanics, the pilots, the training, the way the
aircraft are built to the NTSB, even the FAA oversight.
You know, many times I'll give them the credit that
they deserve. It's a large group of people that do

(14:46):
an incredible job daily to keep all of us safe.
And you know, when there's a breakdown, it can be costly,
and it's one of the reasons you've just got to
stay super.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
Vigilant, no question about it. Can we stick around? We
paused from Rome and come we need to talk about
these other two. We got two more cop topics we
talk about, plus a hub delay update from Jay Ratlift.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Stick around at eight forty six fifty five KRC. There
are two types of pain in the world. One more
time with the Channeline weather.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
We got clouds until around one o'clock when we get
the sun back fifty five for the high today, clouds
over night thirty tomorrow mostly sunny. Sky's forty two thirty
three every night with clouds and rain in the daytime.
On Saturday, high in the mid fifties. We're closing out
of forty four degrees and one more time for traffic from.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
The UCL Tramphic Center.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US.
If you're at risk, trust the experts that you see
health for innovative and personalized hardcare.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Expect more at uc health dot com.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
They've opened up the right lane on westbound for Washington
Way that's helping traffic Office seventy one into downtown. Looks
like things are still blocked off on inbound Columbia Parkway
at Third Street southbound seventy five. There's a record aser
Charles Center by ains packing traffic to seventy four. Chut
Kingbram Moon fifty five krsc HE Talks station, Hey.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Fifty you think about CAIRCD talk station Happy Thursday too
and tomorrow at six thirty am with Tech Friday's Dave Hatter.
In the meantime, one more time with I heartb the
Aviation next for Jay Ratliffe ninety thousand, dollars.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
What happened, Well, we.

Speaker 4 (16:17):
Had a couple on an Avianca flight and they got
to fight this couple and as a result, the man
throws the phone at his wife and it hits the
wall and overheats and starts to catch fire. So now
the crew has to decide to go back and land

(16:39):
because of the smoldering fire that they have on board
the aircraft. Well, the aircraft is too heavy to land.
It's not yet a critical situation, so they decide to
burn off the fuel for three hours and then land
the airplane so that a the passengers that were disrupted
can be removed, the damage to the inside of the
aircraft can be rep aired, and then they can take

(17:01):
care of the rest of the customers. The airline decided
to sue this couple for ninety thousand dollars in part
for the damage to the aircraft the fuel that they
had to expend trying to land after the event took place,
because you can land too heavy, and you don't want
to do that if you don't have to unless it's
a dire emergency situation. And yeah, the thought processes. If

(17:25):
you find these individuals enough, Brian, maybe it'll help future behavior.
I doubt it, but you know, at least you hope
that's going to be the case.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah, no question about it. Cautionary tale, right, get the load.

Speaker 4 (17:42):
I told you, these are the people that you put
their pictures in the TSA area anytime that you've got
that long screening line where every so often their picture
pops up with the dollar amount underneath they were fined exact.
It reminds people constantly, and you know that there are consequences,
and we're seeing more airlines do that, especially on diverted flights,
and I'm glad to see it because you're inconveniencing everybody

(18:05):
on that airplane and everybody that's waiting on that airplane
at the next stop that's going to be canceled as well.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
The fact that people are so oblivious to the concerns
and and and the needs of other people. It's just
it's obviously a growing phenomenon. People are very, very selfish
and don't care about other people. All right, Elon Musk,
is he going to fix it? We had a real
problem with air traffic control shortage of them. That's one
of the things that they said was could have been
a problem in DC, but I saw the other day.

(18:32):
I guess two aircraft ran into each other on the
runway on Wednesday, a Japanese airliner and I guess some
delta flight. But that's an air traffic control issue, I
would imagine, So what's going on and what do we
need to fix?

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Jay?

Speaker 4 (18:45):
Yeah, on that way was a delta flight was being
deced and you know the japan Airlines plane taxing by
and think nailed it.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
Well.

Speaker 4 (18:53):
Pretty easy to tell who's at fault there, yep, because
only one of the two airplanes were moving. But you know,
Elon Musk is a very it kind of guy, and
I would pay I would have paid money to have
walked with him as he's been given the tour of
the Federal Alleviation Administration. Air traffic control says where they're

(19:14):
relying on some of this equipment and technology that it
goes back seventy years.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
They're still using a giant floppy discs.

Speaker 5 (19:20):
I heard, Well they are.

Speaker 4 (19:22):
There's so many things that have to be upgraded, and
it would be like, I don't know, I can't even
think of the comparison. But for somebody like him and
even President Trump and others that are saying, look this
is so far past being done here. We've got to
get this fixed. And other administrations have made a similar assessment,

(19:45):
but nothing ever seems to get done. And one of
the frustrations of air traffic control is that these controllers
have to work with a lot of this antiquated equipment,
and I'll say that from a retention standpoint, it makes
their job as controllers more stressful, harder to do. And
you want to do everything you can to keep these
men and women sticking around for a while. Let's give

(20:07):
them state of the art equipment to you, so let's
make their job easier. Let's let's make aviation safer so
that we can do everything that we want to do.
As far as protecting everybody who flies, there's no way
that you can have two two and a half million
people fly every day, and I consider that a priority.
But Brian, the problem has been over the last several decades,

(20:29):
we found a way to make it work. So in
the eyes of the people that spend money in Washington, DC,
why spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on
this and then a like number here and hundreds of
million because it's working now, so we can use that
money elsewhere, and they do. And it's really unfortunate because
we are so far behind.

Speaker 5 (20:50):
It's going to take a.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
Administration or two to get us caught up. But hopefully
Trump can get us pointed in the right direction.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
Well, one can only hope, and thinking of a day
hat or hope they keep security in mind. If they're
upgrading the air traffic control system by way of keeping
it from being able to be hacked, all.

Speaker 4 (21:07):
Right, Well that that that for sure. But I just
can't wait to see the left go nuts. I mean,
if he makes aviation safer, you know they're going to
complain and it's.

Speaker 5 (21:17):
Like, it's just a lucy But that's what's how.

Speaker 4 (21:22):
Dare you make it safer for me to fly? I'm
so glad I didn't vote for you. Yeah, it's just
it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
It is absolutely ridiculous. All right, let's conclude, as we
always do, Hub delays. What's it like out there to be.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
Up hair only everything to the northeast. I mean, it's nuts.
We've got ice, we've got uh wind, we've got snow,
limited visibility, we've got everything from Charlotte towards the northeast,
New York, Philadelphia d C Boston getting absolutely hammerd today.
Some canceled flights, a lot of delayed flights. It's gonna
be with us the entire day, hopefully better by tomorrow.

(21:55):
But if you're flying tomorrow morning, some of the originating
flights may not make it to where you need to be,
So tomorrow morning slights are going to be impacted as well.
So for the next twenty four to thirty six hours,
this storm going through the Northeast is really gonna hammer
operations across the country. So if you're headed towards the Northeast,
just take an extra dissipation. It's gonna be a slow go.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
Jay Ratliff, I enjoy the conversation every week. I can't
thank you know for spending time with my listeners and me.
God bless you, sir and your better half. We'll talk
next Thursday.

Speaker 4 (22:25):
Looking forward to it. In one of these days, Lord Willing,
I'm anxious to join you on one of those luncheons
when I can.

Speaker 5 (22:31):
It's it's hard for.

Speaker 4 (22:32):
Me with my training to do it, but believe me, brother,
I'm gonna work hard to make that happen.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
I can't wait, and I'll just keep my fingers crossed.
That day happen sooner rather than later, but anytime is
a great time. Thank you brother. We'll talk again next
Thursday eight fifty six. Folks, you didn't get a chance
to listen down with the Neil Americans for Prosperity and
the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. You can help out.
We need that reinstated. Mark Meckler Convention of States sounds
like a pretty good idea for me. And of course
the conversation we just ended with Jay Ratliff. If I

(22:58):
have Casey dot com, you try to heart meet God.
Bless you Joe Strecker for producing the program. Folks, have
a great day. Tuning in tomorrow for Tech Friday, and
don't go wegg Glenbeck's next a.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
Full rundown and the biggest head lines just minutes away.
At the top of the hour, I'm giving you a
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