Nearly a dozen aviation insiders, including a whistleblower who filed a federal complaint, asserted that diversity initiatives cause unneeded distractions.
For one veteran airline captain, a routine flight to Denver changed her view about aviation safety—but not because of an in-flight crisis.
Rather, the captain heard a story that—for the first time in her decades-long career—made her uneasy about putting her loved ones on a plane.
During a 2024 conversation, a flight instructor described unusual steps managers had taken to salvage the career of a young female trainee pilot. The instructor described an “egregious” example of standards apparently being relaxed to meet diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals, the captain said.
The trainee repeatedly failed rudimentary pilot training tests. By “crashing” a computer simulation “flight,” she proved her inability to operate an airplane’s three most basic control mechanisms, the instructor said.
Yet management balked when the instructor failed her.
“She was rehabilitated and allowed to continue, even though she should have been washed out,” the captain told The Epoch Times, speaking on condition of anonymity because her employer had not authorized her to speak to reporters.
“I don’t care if you’re a man or a woman, that is concerning to me.”
Disturbed that such a trainee may still be in the cockpit, the captain said: “I don’t want myself or my family to be in the back of that airplane. … That’s really what it comes down to, right? Would you want to be in the back of that airplane?”
The captain, a woman who was hired long before DEI programs took hold, said the story of the trainee shows how far her airline was willing to go for the apparent sake of DEI.
These programs—aimed at boosting women and minorities—remain entrenched at airlines, despite President Donald Trump’s DEI-ending executive orders and growing concerns over air crashes and safety incidents, the captain and other workers said. The captain pointed to signs of additional inept trainees being “pushed through.”
After simulator training, trainees fly an actual aircraft under the guidance of “line-check airmen.” These expert pilots have reported that some students are now taking four times as long to finish a mandatory training as they should, the captain said.
Frustrated, some of these line-check airmen are stepping aside; one told the captain, “I saw the quality of pilots that we were hiring, and I don’t want anything to do with it.”
When paired with new hires, experienced pilots increasingly find themselves intervening to avert accidents or incidents, straining veteran captains to exhaustion, one flight attendant said.
By Janice Hisle
