Jay Ratliff discusses Aviation Issues

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Generalin with the work ash today cold twenty two for
the high with cloudy sky, slick roads. I'm sure Chuck
will address that momentarily. Over night low of thirteen with clouds,
high thirty tomorrow, flood a morning ends at one thirty.
There'll be some sun tomorrow as well, down to thirteen.
Every night with clouds and a clear Saturday going up
to thirty seven thirteen. Now Here is Chuck on traffic.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
From the uc GOT Traffic Center. You see healthy find
comprehensive care that's so personal it makes your best tomorrow possible.
That's boundless care for better outcomes. Expect more at ucehealth
dot com. Problems southbound seventy five continue. The highway shut
down at Paddock due to an early morning accident near
the lateral tad. Traffic backs through Lachland. Now northbound seventy

(00:45):
five is shut down due to an accident before you
get to Tylers, though, and traffic is backing up through Westchester.
Chuck Ingram on fifty five KR see the talk station.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Hey twenty nine fifty five KRCD talk station Heaby Friday
Eve real quick here shout out to vets and brus
Mattha Maris goes out and buys veterans beers ten dollars
donation and buys a veteran a beer, and the balance
goes to a wonderful organization called Patriots Landing. He's raised
almost twenty one thousand dollars through your donations for Patriots

(01:18):
Landing about thirty four hundred plus beer. So it's a
great organization. They're going to be at Cartridge Brewery tonight
music Beers for Veterans. The event kicks off at five
and last till nine, and a whole bunch of other
veteran organization is going to be there as well. So
Cartridge Breweries on Granden Road on fourrand, show up, buy

(01:42):
a veteran a beer, or if you're a veteran, go
ahead and enjoy a free beer. Welcome back. iHeartMedia aviation expert,
my dear friend Jay Ratliff. It's always a pleasure to
have you on the show.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
Hey, I love all the veteran support things that you have,
so I appreciate that I'm not a beer drinker, but
I love hearing it.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Well, you could buy a beer for a veteran, you
don't have to drink, you know.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Well, I would buy more than one for a fac
But yes, those men and women allowed me to do
what I do and I'll.

Speaker 4 (02:09):
Forever be thankful.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Amen, brother, absolutely, Well, let's get the latest on this
Delta Toronto crash. I finally got to see the video
of that and what the hell happened. I was just
wondering all day long when it first was reported and
I saw photographs of the plane on its back, I'm like,
how in the hell did it get on its back?
But when you watch the video, you see that was
it the wind. I know there's some speculation that was

(02:30):
like a wind shear coming across the from the west
side and the plane was what landing south to north
or north to south. I don't know. You explained it.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
Well, the.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
First thing I look at any time we got a
situation like this is the weather. Did the weather perhaps
have a contributing contribute to whatever took place? And here
we were dealing with crosswinds thirty to forty miles an hour,
which aircraft can handle. It's a bit problematic, but nothing
that today's flight cruise can't handle. They normally increase their
approach speed just a bit to offset what they're going

(03:03):
to be dealing with. On the crosswind and they go
through the normal the process. I saw the video though,
and it shocked me because I'm thinking, Okay, I understand
you have a slightly increased speed on arrival, but the
angle that the aircraft comes into the runway and the

(03:23):
speed on which it comes in. Matthew Buckley, who was
a fighter pilot, I heard him quoted on a news
feed this week. He said that was an aircraft carrier landing,
and I thought that was the perfect way to phrase it,
because typically when an aircraft comes in right before you

(03:44):
have the touchdown, what the crew tends to do is
to pull the nose up just a bit. They flared up,
so just like you remember the space shield of landing,
the rear gears come down first and then slowly the
front rotates down to where the landing gear touches down. Here,
all three seemed to almost hit the same time and
at such a speed that it looked like the force

(04:06):
of that could have caused and I'm not sure because
the investigation is just beginning. The right rear landing gear
to collapse. So once you have the right landing gear collapse,
everything shifts to the right. Yeah, You then have the
wing that comes ripped off of the aircraft. It may
have been the landing gear helped to take the wing off,

(04:27):
we don't know. And then you've still have the left
wing that's on the aircraft, that's still doing what it's
supposed to be doing fine. So what happens was absent
a white absent right wing. You now see the aircraft turn,
it pivots up and comes around to where it's on
its top. Now, one of the things I'm glad for
it is that the fuel that was in the right

(04:49):
wing was detached and was trailing the fuselage.

Speaker 4 (04:54):
That was.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Definitely a miracle there, because you had jet fuel. Aviation
has gone everywhere, and that part that was on fire
and of course there's always the fear of explosion, and
it was separated from the aircraft, which was good, And
the entire interior of the aircraft did exactly what it
should have. The fuselage remained intact. The seats which have

(05:18):
been totally and completely upgraded over the decades, which now
I think they're rated for sixteen g's of force, they
didn't go anywhere. You had everybody hopefully strapped in as
they should have been. You have fire retardant materials inside
the aircraft. Again, because we've learned over the years and
we've made things safer. That aircraft in that accident was

(05:39):
probably the poster child for everything that the NTSB has
been able to do over the last thirty forty years
and constantly learning from every accident in their accident, so
every aspect of aircraft aviation we can make safer. And
then of course you had the flight attendants do an
incredible job getting people out of the aircraft. Remember, the

(05:59):
easiest thing to do is to throw open that door
to get everybody out. The problem is you're inverted. So
had they not remembered to disengage the emergency slides, you
open that door and all they're gonna do is drop again.
These flight attendants, I cannot brag on their training enough.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
You've got all of this going on. It was happening
in seconds.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
They're getting everybody off the aircraft and they did their
typical great job. And you know, it reminded me because
they're calling this a miracle in Toronto. It was twenty
years ago we had a miracle in Toronto. An Air
France flight comes in lands Long.

Speaker 4 (06:33):
Hits Hard.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
Kind of a similar situation here plane breaks apart, catches
on fire, three hundred and nine people on board.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
The plane's about to explode.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
Now to board three hundred and nine people. It takes
you forty.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
Five minutes or so.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
The flight attendant's got everybody off in less than ninety seconds.
Airplane blows up, no fatalities. You look at the images
of air France three POT fifty eight a Google image,
and aircraft is completely burnt, totally.

Speaker 4 (06:59):
It's gone.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yeah, and you're thinking, good lord, did anybody survive? Everyone survived.
The flight attendants did a great job, you know. And
we know that because of all the people who felt
compelled before they got out of the aircraft to video
everything that was going on, because look, I'm upside down.
The airplane may be on fire, of course, and I'm
going to video what's going on now. I'm gonna get
my butt off that airplane. But some people thought videoing

(07:22):
it was I might get alike here, Yeah, let's.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
Do it and then go and then change my underwear. Honestly,
Oh my lord.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
It's just these people. I just yes, people die. I'm
gonna get next to a buffalo. I'm gonna love this cliff.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
It just well, we refer to that as you know,
the the Darwin theory of evolution, you're the survival of
the fittest. We'll bring Jay back. We got several more
things to talk about with our heart Media Aviation Expert
Jay Rath. If we're gonna do that, just hang on
fifty five KRC. My name is Kyle Tigisim. It's a

(07:55):
thirty nine. If you've got kir CD talk station, it's Thursday.
It's I heard Media avah nextpert Jay rat left time
and Jay have of pivoting over to Trump and his
firing of FAA employees, and everyone seems to want to
blame him for every airplane disaster it's out there. When
Donald Trump wasn't around, it didn't have anything to do

(08:18):
with it, but he didn't get rid of some FAA
employees and apparently looking to upgrade the FAA flight system
because what it's a legacy system for like the nineteen
fifties or something.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Right, Oh, you're being kind, but yes, at least the
nineteen fifties, and you and I've talked about the need
for upgrading that system. Incredible. It's to use the word
upgrade is an insult to the word upgrade. It's just
it needs to be blown up and redone. So President
Trump can bring in the SpaceX people that can land

(08:51):
a rocket. I think that they can figure out a
way to upgrade significantly what we.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
Have with the air traffic control system.

Speaker 3 (08:58):
And I'm incredibly excited because of all the presidents we've
had for the last twenty thirty forty years, you've heard
many of them talk about the need for devoting the
necessary resources and to get things improved as much as possible.
At the Federal Aviation Administration, rarely does it happen.

Speaker 4 (09:17):
Now.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
We've had a few projects next gen tracking system that
has been so decades behind schedule, so far over costs,
it's been ridiculous. But the idea of getting this kind
of attention now thrills me because if they can attack
it like the Manhattan Project, knock it out in two
or three years, and come out with something that's state

(09:39):
of the art, it means that even if we have
air traffic controllers that are working shorthanded as we are
across the country, let's at least give them the state
of the art technology. Let's make it as easy on
them as we can to do their jobs, which of course,
is just going to make everything that much more safe.

Speaker 4 (09:58):
And of course, when Donald Trump comes.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
Out and fires four hundred or three hundred people from
the FAA, that's what everybody's screaming about. And you know,
they asked the Delta CEO at Bastion this week I
think it was yesterday about that very point, and he
just shrugged it off. He said, look, you know about
three or four hundred people. They were probationary employees, none
of them air traffic control, none of them in a

(10:22):
critical support position. And yeah, it was just part of
all the trimming that's taking place right now.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
Now.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
I'll be the first to admit the optics look horrible,
but the bottom line is the idea that these were
air traffic controllers and you know, individual no, they were
probationary employees. A lot of them are being interviewed and
you would think they were the head of the FAA,
but that's not the case. So what we have as
as far as the situation here is if we can

(10:51):
get everything upgraded and we can devote more time in
getting a non DEI approach to air traffic controllers, I
think we're going to be in good shape because it
was a number of years ago. The FAA wanted to
be more inclusive. Nothing wrong with that, but they significantly
lowered the standards for us bringing in individuals from a
qualification standpoint, and that's where I have my issue. I

(11:13):
don't care about anybody's whatever. I just want to make
sure that they're the most qualified individual, male, female, whatever
for that position. And as long as that's the focus,
then that's great. I don't want to have a DEI
policy like United wants for pilots where they want twenty
percent of their pilots hired to be women or minorities.
That's a great goal, but to have that stated means

(11:37):
you're going to say no to very qualified people to
bring in less qualified people. And even though some will say, well,
that's not a downgrade and safety because they're all qualified. Look,
if I've got an attorney as fifty years experience versus
woman that's got ten years experience, I know which one
I want to go with.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
Problem.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
You are right on that. All right, let's move over.

Speaker 3 (11:59):
There was another uh and Brian, excuse me, I I
do have an attorney question for you. Yeah, the Delta
Airlines is coming out offering the people on the Toronto Flame,
thirty thousand.

Speaker 4 (12:11):
Dollars, no strings attached.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
And the thought is it would not prevent you from
further lawsuits or anything you want to do legally down
the road. I want to trust Delta to do this,
I really do, because it's such a nice gesture.

Speaker 4 (12:26):
But I would.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Wonder, from your hat and your experience, what would you
think about somebody taking that thirty thousand dollars from Delta.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Well, if it didn't come with strings attached, because I
would figure that they would have a well a settlement
agreement form pre prepared that by signing on the dotted
line and accepting thirty thousand dollars, you agree to release
and Delta from all further liability. But if they're just
saying here, I don't know that can necessarily impact it.
Accept at trial when you were asking for your damages,

(12:54):
and Delta's attorneys, if you have to go through the
trial process, would say, well, it needs to be reddet
We did give you third thousand dollars, right, so you're
part of your pain and suffering or your economic damages
or whatever has already been reduced by that amount. So
but since you're talking about you know theoretical numbers like
how much do you get for pain and suffering and
emotional damage? What does that that figure really even mean?

(13:18):
So it's a random figure that a jury might award
you that you're going to be reduced by a thirty
thousand dollars amount of okay whatever. Maybe the jury gave
the guy thirty thousand dollars more than he really even needed.
I don't know. Okay, it's like out the.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
Idea that you would be comfortable with. It makes me
feel better about it because, you know, sadly, in my
career there were times I had to deal with individuals
that survived plane crashes, some that were the sole survivors
of commercial crashes. And I'm thrilled that everybody survived, but
we would be remiss it not remembering that the emotional

(13:54):
stress that these individuals went through is going to be
something that for many of them, they're going to be
living with and coping with for the rest of their life.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, like a decision to never fly again because I
almost died, I can understand that a lot. Yeah, let's pause.
We're going to talk about the other midair collision between
the General Aviation airplanes and then also a word or
two about breaking wheelchairs plus hub delays. One more with
Jay Ratliff, Hang around fifty five car the talk station.

(14:22):
One more time for the nine weather forecast twenty two
for the high today with clouds over night, little thirteen
with clouds thirty with some sun tomorrow and the floodbarning
ending at one thirty, partly cloudie overnight with a little
thirteen Saturday clearing up and a high thirty seven thirteen
degrees Right now, Time for final traffic chuck from the
UCL Tramping Center.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
You see health go find comprehensive care that's so personal
it makes your best tomorrow possible. That's boundless care for
better outcomes. Expect more hot you seehealth dot com. Northbound
seventy five is shut down. That's Cincinnati Dton Road due
to an accident. Went back to traffic through Westchester. Southbound
seven five closed at Paddock due to an early morning wreck.

(15:04):
There's an accident in northbound seventy one and fighter ingraman
fifty five tiers.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
The talk station a forty eight fift five krcdtalk station.
One more time with I Heart Media Avace expert Jay Ratliff,
and what's the story on the two planes that flew
into each other.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
Jay, you know, anytime we have a general aviation accident,
now it's going to make front lines.

Speaker 4 (15:26):
Yeah, headlines. It normally doesn't.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
Sadly, we might have eight or ten people every week
that die in general aviation accidents. So when we had
these two planes collide in outside of Tucson nowt about
twenty five miles outside of Tucson at a regional airport,
it just raises everybody's concern over flying.

Speaker 4 (15:46):
But one of them.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
Was Assessina and those that have flown in Assessin and
ohs the wings over your head, the blind spot is
above you. And the other airplane involved was an aircraft
that was a low wing, the kind you step onto
the wing and then jump in to the end of
the interior of the airplane where the blind spot is underneath.
And Brian, we had a situation here in Cincinnati a
number of years ago, and we've had them around the

(16:08):
country where you have this type of scenario where the
cessna can't see above it and the other airplane can't
see below it, And there's times that they occupy the
same airspace collide and sometimes fatalities occur and I suspect
that's what probably happened here. They do not have an
air traffic control tower at this Minera Regional Airport. They've

(16:30):
been approved for one, but they're five years behind. COVID
really set them back. So you had pilots that were
in essence talking to everyone as they were doing what
they were doing. And again, we just had two airplanes
that were in the wrong position here, at least one
of them. And you know, the NTSB will find out why.
But remember, we'll have four or five, maybe six hundred

(16:51):
fatalities every year on general aviation. So in the sixteen
years we went without an accident here in the United States, commercially,
there were probably seven to eight nine thousand fatalities on
general aviation. So wow, it's it's a norm. So I'm
just trying to keep things in proper perspective so people
don't think we're having more planes swallow of the guy
now than we've ever had, because that simply wouldn't be

(17:13):
an accurate statement.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Well, my dad had a pilot's license. He hadn't flown
since I think before I was since I was before
I was born, but he knew aviation and he knew
the concepts and everything. Anyway, when they were in Alaska
and doing one of those you know, flyover Alaska airplane
kind of deals, and he called the pilot's attention to
a very close aircraft, you know, said he two o'clock,

(17:35):
two o'clock, and maybe avoided a collision because they're just
flying around doing sight seeing. Well, I think it was
only a couple weeks later in the news, and it's
the reason he brought the story up. Two of them
flew into each other up there.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
Yeah, yep, it happens, and it's happening less now because
we have technology that continues to improve and a lot
more of a situational awareness on the training side. But sadly,
you have a lot of people that are pilots that
are trying to increase the number of their flight hours
so they can qualify to become commercial pilots. They're flying

(18:09):
some of these smaller tour type airplanes and they don't
have quite the experience that we would like them to have,
and sadly sometimes mistakes take place.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
All right, Moving over to breaking wheelchairs, this is a thing.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
Well airlines have made it a thing because over the
last several years they have broken loss delayed all kinds
of wheelchairs to the point that the Biden administration lasts
fall through. The Department of Transportation came out with a
ruling that said, look, airlines are responsible for the handling
of wheelchairs and disabled passengers because Brian, when you have

(18:45):
a situation where someone is unable to walk, they have
to be carried on and off the aircraft, and the
airline doesn't have an aisle chair, the smaller narrow thing
you put a person on, getting them off their wheelchair
in the jet bridge and then taking back to Road
ten or something. Some airlines don't have those at the
gate like they're supposed to, even though they have advanced warning,

(19:07):
and some passengers have been forced to crawl out of
the airplane so they can be then placed into their wheelchair.
So the Biden administration, to their credit, said, look, when
this type of thing's happened, it's an automatic violation of
the Federal air Carrier Access Act, which makes perfect sense.
So the airlines were held to a higher standard. Well,
now that we have a different administration, and now that

(19:29):
they've already had a victory in court over the fee
disclosures on reservations, the airlines for the lobbying group for
the airlines or back in court representing five airlines who
are challenging this thing. It's not exactly fair for us
to have this kind of thing imposed on us, and
they're looking for it to be thrown out the window. Now,

(19:51):
I suspect, and I really want to be wrong here,
they're going to get their way and it's going to disappear.
Because this is a very friendly airline friendly administration, as
every other administration has been before. Other than for whatever
the reason, the bid administration went after airlines unlike any
that I've ever seen. In the last two years, airlines

(20:12):
have been held accountable in ways that I love because
finally they're being held to standards, not from a safety standpoint,
but from a customer service standpoint, being forced to provide
better service.

Speaker 4 (20:23):
So I'll keep an.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
Eye on this one and I'll let you know, but
I suspect that surprise, this one will probably be thrown
out the window. Where airlines are no longer required to
have specific requirements when they lose or damage the wheelchair,
many of which that are personally made. You just can't
put somebody in a wheelchair that's in a wheelchair because
sometimes for medical reasons. The wheelchair they have it has
to be specially designed so to misplace one, lose one

(20:49):
for ten, twelve, twenty four to thirty six hours. Yeah,
puts that individual in incredible pain and suffering while they're
waiting for the airline to get their act together to
get the wheelchair that they have lost, which should be
a priority, you know, returned to the customer.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
Fair enough on that. And finally, how.

Speaker 4 (21:06):
Many times damage once it gets there?

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Brian, I'm sorry to laugh about that, but that comes
from shock. It's that, it is, it is. How about
finally we end on hub delays.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
If you're flying today Salt Lake City, Philadelphia, d C,
and Charlotte, looks like those hubs are gonna have weather
delays that could approach an hour other than that to
other places around the country.

Speaker 4 (21:27):
Should be a pretty good day to fly.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Sounds great. I heard media aviation expert Jay rattle Iff
love having you on my show every Thursday. We'll do
it again next Thursday, and of course between now and then,
have a fantastic week and weekend. Eight fifty five folks,
if you have k City Talk station, couldn't listen to
Ken Cobra FLP President, they got a problem City of
Cincinnati's emergency communications responder programs, civilians showing up when cops

(21:50):
should show up. Challenging. Yeah, Ohio State Representative Jennifer Grows
on medicaid a variety of different things and points on
that really important to hear her conversation with me, and
I recommend you do. At fifty five carsa dot Com,
Donovan and Neil protecting prosperity and the Trump tax cuts
got a big event at the farm Next week the
details of fifty five carsa dot Com. Get a copy

(22:12):
of Michael Walsh's book, A Rage to Conquer Twelve Battles
that Change the course of Western History. Fifty five krs
dot Com. Thanks as always to executive producer Joe Stracker
for doing what he does each and every day. Tune
in tomorrow for Tech Friday with Dave Hatter among other guests,
and have a great day and took away. Colen Beck
is up next, covering Trump's first one hundred days.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
Every day we stand on the verge of the four
greatest years in American history.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
Fifty five krs The talk station