Guys, we need to have an honest conversation about DEI. And some fellow conservatives arenāt going to like this.
My son attends
@ERAU_Daytona, arguably the top flight school in the world. He earned a 4.0 GPA last semester and just scored a 97 on his commercial pilot exam.
Heās 6ā3ā, confident, and has sailed with me through ocean storms so violent I probably should have been arrested for bringing him aboard. Weāve hiked deep into the wilderness for days with nothing but backpacks.
I donāt say this to brag. I say it because the kid is a rock star.
Heās exactly the kind of young man youād want to see at the end of the jetway.
Now letās talk about the tragic Learjet crash that killed nine people.
The captain was Jeff Gregory, 55, a white man with decades of experience and the gray hair and seasoned appearance that inspire confidence.
His copilot was Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, a 20-year-old woman.
And immediately people started screaming DEI.
That makes my blood boil.
Iām DEAD set against DEI quotas. I believe cockpit seats should be earned through competence, judgment, and merit. Not race or gender.
But if you look at a female pilot and automatically assume sheās a DEI hire, YOU ARE DOING EXACTLY WHAT YOU CLAIM TO OPPOSE.
Consider this:
My son is 20. She was 20.
My son has hundreds of flight hours. She reportedly had over 1,300.
My son is working on his commercial certificate. She earned hers as a teenager.
My son flies single-engine piston aircraft. She was flying a JET the military uses.
Put it in baseball terms: My son is the college phenom with every Major League scout in the stands, watching his every move and predicting a brilliant future.
But she? At the same age, she was already batting cleanup for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, the New York Yankeesā Triple-A team.
A the same age, she was operating at an entirely different level of professional aviation.
Was she a great pilot? YES. You donāt move up that fast if you suck. The testing is just too hard.
Bringing DEI into this is just wrong.
YES there are DEI pilots.
YES some airlines have pushed mediocre women too fast and too far.
But Nathalia wasnāt one of them.
Iāve discussed this extensively with
@JavonPrice. Iām a proud dues-paying member of the Organization of Black Maritime Graduates.
What I love about them is they donāt give a damn about your skin color when it comes to joining or getting a scholarship. They want outstanding mariners.
Yet whenever I promote an exceptional Black graduate, someone inevitably says:
āWe donāt need another DEI hire.ā
Or, āDonāt tell me to hire him because heās Black.ā
IāM NOT.
Iām telling you to hire him because heās a damn good mariner.
Hereās what conservatives need to understand:
You cannot demand a meritocracy while refusing to recognize merit because liberals have rigged the game.
You cannot condemn identity politics and then judge someone by their identity.
You have to be color blind but also make absolutely certain you give everyone a fair assessment and donāt swing the other way.
And if your first thought when you see a woman or minority is āDEI hire,ā that does NOT make you racist. DEI has created legitimate concerns about merit. But it DOES mean you have a bias and itās YOUR responsibility to recognize it, challenge it, and judge the individual on merit.
Do not compensate by giving the person extra points on their job interview but šÆ DO spend a little more time digging into their resume to see if they are a rockstar.
As a ship captain, I donāt care whether the officer standing watch beside me is Black, white, male, or female.
I care whether they can do the damn job.
ONE STANDARD. FOR EVERYONE.
Nine people died in that crash. Their families deserve answers, not political accusations.
The ocean doesnāt care who you are.
Gravity doesnāt care who you voted for.
If weāre going to fight for meritocracy, weād damn well better defend merit wherever we find it.
Writing this in my personal capacity, but I have been flying these types of aircraft for more than 20 years, with over 8,000 hours, and have reasonable familiarity with how the charter world operates. I feel compelled to post after seeing commentary about the Lear 60 crash, from missile strikes to DEI to critiquing this poor womanās final radio calls.
That last part is what I find most troubling. She was the second-in-command (SIC), and while she was empowered to point out mistakes as part of good crew resource management, she was doing her job, communicating with ATC right to the end in a terrifying situation. She likely knew before many of those calls that she was going to die. I have heard final calls from friends, from military pilots with thousands of hours in fighter aircraft, and they are just as heartbreaking because they know the end is approaching.
I understand the public interest given the footage and audio. But you do not know the aircraftās maintenance history, whether there was a structural failure, if any failure was induced by turbulence, overspeed, or overcontrol, or everything happening in that cockpit. I am sure weather will be part of the investigation, but beyond that, it is speculation. The charter industry routinely hires commercial pilots very early in their careers to gain experience alongside an ATP-qualified captain before they move up to the airlines. She would still have the appropriate training, qualifications, and checkouts by an FAA examiner or designee.
Let people investigate, learn, and share the facts. Be respectful to those who perished and the families who carry their memories. God bless them and their loved ones.