Why I Feel It's Not Safe To Fly Anymore

Viewers wrote me asking questions about flying commercially. I decided to answer those questions here as there are things going on behind the scenes in the commercial airline industry that I feel anyone who flies commercially need to be aware of for their own protection. Note that I am not a pilot. I've been behind the controls of a plane countless times just by virtue of having dated and married pilots, one of which was a commercial airlines pilot. I just had no interest in pursuing a pilot's license. So what I learned about flying I learned at the hands of pilots. Still, that does not make me a pilot and I just want to be honest and above board about that fact.

First question: What do VI and rotate mean?

Upon takeoff, VI is the speed at which the pilot must decide if he/she is going to commit to taking off or if something doesn't sit right with the pilot, to abandon the takeoff. Once past the VI speed, the airplane is committed to a takeoff.

Rotate means basically, wheels up off the runway, the plane having exceeded the VI speed. It's the speed at which the pilot begins to apply control inputs to cause the nose of the airplane to pitch up, after which it will leave the ground/runway.

Second question: Why won't you fly commercially anymore?

In a nutshell? Airline corporate greed has in my opinion, made flying unsafe for passengers and airline crews. That, coupled with the fact the U.S. government has weaponized commercial airliners. The inside job 9-11 attacks are the perfect example of this...as are the numbers of crashes we've had so far already in 2025 with their associated fatalities.

We've not had an airplane crash with fatalities since 2009. Now suddenly planes are falling out of the sky, with fatalities piling up left and right. One must ask themselves "Why is this suddenly happening?" Report from the NTSB on airline crashes and fatalities so far in 2025:

2025: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November

I apologize for this being a long article to read. But before purchasing an airline ticket to fly anywhere, I'd like readers to consider the following glimpse into what has been and is going on behind-the-scenes in the commercial airline industry.

Taking the time to read this article could save your life.

Turkish Airlines Flight 981 was a scheduled flight from Istanbul Yeşilköy Airport to London Heathrow Airport, with an intermediate stop at Orly Airport in Paris. On 3 March 1974, the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 flight crashed into the Ermenonville Forest, about 25 miles outside Paris, killing all 335 passengers and 11 crew. The crash was also known as the Ermenonville air disaster.

Flight 981 was the deadliest accident in aviation history until the Tenerife airport disaster. It remains the deadliest single-aircraft accident without survivors, the deadliest accident involving the McDonnell Douglas DC-10, the deadliest accident in the history of Turkish Airlines, and the deadliest aviation accident to occur in France.

Just after the aircraft passed over the town of Meaux, the rear left cargo door blew off and the sudden difference in air pressure between the cargo area and the pressurized passenger cabin above it, which amounted to 5.2 psi; caused a section of the cabin floor above the open hatch to separate and be forcibly ejected through the open hatch, along with six occupied passenger seats attached to that floor section. The fully recognizable bodies of the six Japanese passengers who were ejected from the aircraft along with the rear cargo door were found in a turnip field 9 miles from the crash site. An air traffic controller noted that as he'd cleared Flight 981 to fly at 23,000 feet he'd seen an echo on his radar screen that briefly remained stationary behind the aircraft. This was likely the remains of the rear cargo door.

What does an over 50 year old airplane crash have to do with anything? EVERYTHING!

What the NTSB discovered during its investigation into the crash of Flight 981 was that the CEO of McDonnnell Douglas (manufacturer of the DC10) and the head of the FAA had made a "gentleman's agreement" that the FAA wouldn't ground the entire DC10 fleet. The investigation found the aircraft company knew about the design flaw, after a plane with a similar error exploded during a test take off four years before.

So that you're aware of how airplane crash investigations work, the NTSB (Natl. Transportation Safety Board) has no authoritative or legal powers to force airline Corporate to fix plane malfunctions or faulty equipment like rear cargo doors blowing off mid flight. They can report what caused a commercial airline to crash and make recommendations as to what the airline industry should do in order to ensure another crash doesn't happen for the same reason. It's the FAA that holds the authority to force the airline industry to comply with NTSB recommendations. However, when the head of the FAA is corrupt and making "gentleman's agreements" with airline Corporate not to ground an entire fleet of planes that need grounding for the safety of all concerned in order to protect that airline's bottom line profits...well, you get the picture.

Because this "gentleman's agreement" was made between the heads of McDonnell Douglas (manufacturer of the DC-10) and the head of the FAA, McDonnell Douglas was allowed to keep the DC-10's in service - resulting in many more crashes of DC-10's over the ensuing decades, when cargo doors kept flying off the planes due to a faulty locking pin mechanism McDonnell Douglas was never forced to fix.

The debris field of Flight 981: the plane wasn't even recognizable as having been a plane

Fast forward to 35 years ago: On January 5, just after 17:00, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 took off from Portland International Airport (PDX) for Ontario International Airport (ONT) in California. The three-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft carried 177 passengers and crew. Around six minutes after takeoff, a door plug on the aircraft's port side blew off, causing a violent decompression of the aircraft. The pilots declared an emergency and returned immediately to Portland International Airport (PDX).

The hole left in the side of Flight 1282 when yet another door blew off in mid flight

Luckily no one was sucked out of the door-sized hole in the fuselage on that flight.

The same cannot be said of the last time a similar incident occurred when nine passengers were killed following a sudden decompression of a passenger's plane due to the cargo door flying off.

United Airlines flight 811 was a regularly scheduled flight between Los Angeles and Sydney, Australia, with intermediate stops at Honolulu and Auckland. On February 24, 1989, United Airlines 811 took off from Honolulu (HNL), Hawaii, just after 13:00 local time, bound for Sydney, Australia. The aircraft used for the flight was an 18-year-old Boeing 747-122. Onboard were 355 passengers and crew. Because the initial climb out of Honolulu involved flying through a series of thunderstorms; the pilot in charge of the aircraft decided to keep the fasten seatbelt sign on.

At around 13:52 local time, a loud bang shook the plane as the aircraft passed through 22,000 feet and climbing. The forward cargo door blew off a second later, tearing a hole in the fuselage. The sudden loss of cabin pressurization caused a part of the cabin floor to collapse, with the seats in rows 18-12 being ejected from the aircraft. Nine passengers in those rows were sucked out of the plane, still strapped in their seats.

After declaring an emergency, they began dumping fuel in preparation for landing. The aircraft landed safely back in Hawaii, with all remaining passengers and crew exiting the plane in less than 45 seconds. Despite an extensive search of the area where the decompression took place, none of the nine victims were ever recovered.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) initiated an investigation into the incident but could not locate the cargo door that had blown off. During the investigation, the NTSB discovered that the aircraft had experienced malfunctions with the front cargo door in the months leading up to it being blown off in flight.

Based on the information it had when the NTSB issued its final report in April 1990, it concluded that the malfunctions had damaged the doors' locking mechanism. The accident was thus attributed to the ground crew failing to ensure the door was fully locked. They also cited the airline for not following up on the malfunctions that caused the faulty locking mechanism but concluded that the aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, was not to blame.

How was Boeing (who'd since purchased McDonnell Douglas) not to blame for failing to fix a manufacturing defect the airline industry had known about for over 50 years?!! Especially since that cargo door defect had caused repeated airline crashes since? Not only that, the NTSB having already determined there was absolutely no way for that ground crew to see whether or not the locking pins on the cargo door had in fact, locked, Even the light in the cockpit indicated the cargo door had locked when it hadn't.

That's the rub that enables this airline Corporate greed to have run rampant as it has. It's far more cost effective for them to blame an innocent man low on the totem pole and fire him, than it is for the FAA to ground their entire fleet of airplanes due to faulty construction that results in passenger and crew fatalities.

In the case of Flight 811, one of the young men sucked out of the plane was a young Australian named Lee. Lee's father was an engineer and not wanting their son to have died in vain due to airline negligence they traveled thousands of miles from Australia to the U.S. and spent thousands of dollars of their own money to demonstrate to the public that the

NTSB report their investigation and conclusions of their investigation into the crash of Flight 811 was patently false. Lee's father even built a replica of the faulty pin locking system to demonstrate the crash was due to the faulty locking pin assembly - not some innocent maintenance worker all parties involved try to use as their scapegoat rather than spend the money to properly fix that faulty locking mechanism. It was due solely to the tremendous years long battle Lee's parents fought against the airline industry that the parties involved didn't continue to get away with their cover up.

Yet in spite of that, this reckless disregard for passenger safety continues unabated. Yet another example of this:

Are you noticing a repeating pattern of deliberate negligence here?

Yet another glaring example of this Corporate greed that controls the airline industry:

The crash of SwissAir Flight 111 due to an onboard fire caused by an electrical wiring short in the first class entertainment system, as determined by the NTSB investigation into the crash. It was determined all passengers and crew were dead before the plane ever crashing into the ocean - killed within 90 seconds of airline components like seats and other airline construction materials releasing toxic fumes inhaled by the passengers and crew.

The NTSB's recommendation to Corporate was to provide smoke hoods for all passengers from that point forward. The FAA refused to issue a citation to the airlines, making this safety protocol mandatory. That crash that killed all 229 people and crew aboard happened in 1998. To this day, the airline industry has yet to provide smoke hoods that would protect its passengers' lives in the worst catastrophe that can happen on a plane - an onboard fire. In fact, Corporate told the NTSB (and I quote) "If we happen to lose a couple of hundred passengers here and there...well, that's just the cost of doing business."

Your life as their passenger has no value to airline Corporate whatsoever.

AIRLINE MAINTENANCE And here's just one result of that disregard for their passengers and crews' safety.

In their Corporate eyes, every minute a plane is on the ground and not in the air is costing them big bucks that could otherwise go into their greedy pockets. Therefore, both their flight crews and maintenance crews are put under pressure that amounts to Corporate bullying to get those planes in the air - whether necessary needed maintenance to make that plane safe to fly has been performed properly - or performed at all.

British Airways pilot, Tim Lancaster was sucked out of his cockpit seat and pinned against the exterior of the plane when an improperly installed windscreen blew off at 20,000+ feet, causing a sudden decompression in the cockpit. Were it not for the quick thinking and actions of his first officer and two flight attendants, Lancaster most certainly would not have survived the incident as he did. His first officer got the plane down quickly while two flight attendants, already believing Lancaster was dead, held onto his legs for dear life so Lancaster's body would not be sucked into the jet engine, causing the plane to crash.

When the incident was investigated, investigators discovered half the bolts meant to hold the windscreen on the plane were missing! The maintenance crew had been pressured by Corporate to get that plane off the ground no matter what.

But that wasn't even the worst discovery the NTSB made. They found that nationwide, substandard knock-off bolts had flooded airline maintenance replacement parts supply inventories. Why should Corporate spend $250 on the correct bolt when they could pay $30 for a cheap, improperly fitting knock-off? Still feel safe boarding a plane? I personally don't and apparently I'm not the only one who feels that way.

Last year, 71 percent of people in the States said they believed that air travel is very or somewhat safe - and in 2025, only 64 percent of people agree with this statement. Source

TSA OVERREACH

This was my friend, now deceased. I'll use an alias and call him "Don" so as not to endanger his family in any way.

Don was a security analyst for the airline industry. It was his job to test TSA security checkpoints as well as airplanes themselves for security effectiveness.

The way Don would do this was to attempt to smuggle a bomb (unable to be detonated) past TSA security and onto a plane. Don himself told me he succeeded in doing this in every major U.S. airport and onto every plane he tested. If you think the TSA in any way is in place to keep you safe, you best go back to the drawing board on your thinking. That the government has given the TSA carte blanche in performing things like illegal strip searches without probable cause ought to give you a clue as to why the TSA was implemented in the first place - and it had absolutely nothing to do with passenger safety.

This would explain why last year alone, there was a 26% increase in illegal, unethical behavior (and the numerous resulting lawsuits) among TSA agents. I experienced it myself while trying to board a flight to Hawaii.

The people I was traveling with arrived very late to the airport, within minutes of our flight to Hawaii boarding and we still had to go through TSA security so it was iffy as to whether or not we'd miss our flight. At the time, I had a broken ankle so was in an immobilizer walking boot. I passed through the TSA scanner without any problem whatsoever. So that you're aware of it, the TSA does not see an avatar of your body like the government claims. These are actual images as seen by TSA agents when you go through their scanner.

As you can see, there is absolutely nothing left to the TSA agent's imagination and anything on or in any part of the body will be picked up by that scanner.

In spite of having passed through the scanner which revealed nothing either on or in me or hidden in any manner whatsoever, I was accosted by a TSA agent who demanded I remove my immobilizer to prove I wasn't smuggling drugs in it - which would have shown up on the scanner if that had been the case - a fact I pointed out to this TSA agent bully. Removing then putting on the immobilizer again takes a full 10 minutes and I explained we were already about to miss our flight. I even showed this TSA agent my Sheriff's Dept. badge and ID to show him I was a cop and therefore, would not be likely to be so stupid as to attempt to smuggle drugs in my immobilizer. Regardless, this TSA pervert then demanded I either remove the immobilizer or he would STRIP SEARCH ME! Now unless my allegedly 'smuggled drugs' magically migrated from my walking cast to my vagina/anus right in front of this TSA agent, he was illegally and without probable cause, threatening me with an illegal strip search. Not a very smart thing to do to a cop. (Can you say "lawsuit" buddy?) You bet I reported him and the TSA very wisely fired him.

This is yet another reason I will no longer fly. I will not play the government's/TSA's tyrannical illegal game they're playing with this carte blanche TSA overreach.

If other people want to continue to fly the more power to them. I for one will not give the airline industry one red cent of my money until they clean up their act. And there's no indication they have any intention of doing that unless they're pressured into it by their prospective passengers.

Apparently this is already starting to happen according to an article I read yesterday. The airlines bookings are down, forcing the airlines to restore previously free perks they'd discontinued in order to entice people to purchase airline tickets.

Furthermore, pilots have begun to rebel, refusing to take off on their scheduled flights it they see as much as one of their oil pressure gauges reading incorrectly. Other pilots quickly followed suit. This put Corporate in the corner as far as finding last minute replacement flight crews and as long as that plane sits on the tarmac, they're losing big bucks. I intend to do my part by refusing to utilize their services. Nothing says I have to fly. I can drive, take a bus, train, boat or crawl on my knees to my travel destination if need be.

Next question: Where's the safest seat on an airplane to sit in the event that plane crashes?

The simple answer is you can choose your seat going by statistics alone - unless you're going to fly Southwest that is now assigning seats for no apparent good reason that I've heard.

But statistics are just the simple answer to that question. The majority of airplane crashes are not caused by a single incident but by multiple events compounding on top of one another.

There are 3 factors that determine whether or not you'll survive a plane crash:

• What's causing the crash and how the pilot and cockpit crew respond to what's causing the crash

• The position the plane is in when it impacts the ground

• The speed the plane is traveling at when it impacts the ground
  

Statistically speaking, in most crashes the plane is in an uncontrolled descent and traveling at a phenomenal rate of speed as it falls from the sky in a nose down position. When this happens, those in the nose and front section of the plane are going to take the brunt of that impact and have less chance of surviving. Aviation fuel is highly flammable and thousands of gallons of it are stored in the wings of the plane. Essentially if you're seated in the middle of the plane over or near the wings, you're sitting on one big bomb that will more than likely turn into a fireball on impact, especially if the pilot did not have the opportunity to dump the plane's fuel before the impact. Therefore, those seated in the middle of the plane have the next least chance of surviving a crash.

Rarely will a plane crash tail first which accounts for those seated in the tail having the highest chance of survival. And in quite a few crashes the tail section will break away from the plane fuselage, leaving the tail section relatively intact.

However, if you're about to say, crash nose first into the side of a mountain doing over 500 mph, that plane is going to crumple like an accordion bellows being compressed or a beer can being crushed - in which there is no safe seat to be sitting in. In those types of crashes all that's likely left are fragments of the plane, not even recognizable as once having been a plane - and no intact bodies but only body fragments strewn all over the debris field.

You saw this with the Flight 981 debris field below. All of those white pieces are fragments of the airplane.

My advice is this: Rather than worrying about what seat is "safe" (because you're really not going to know that until impact anyway) you be proactive as much as possible in protecting your own life when flying. I can't think of a flight I was ever on that half the passengers weren't completely ignoring the flight attendant's pre-flight safety briefing. I get it that they're thinking "I've heard this 1000 times before" but here's the problem with that. Older model airplanes and newer model airplanes are designed very differently, especially with respect to the number of emergency exits and where they're located in the plane - as shown in the diagram below.

Do you know what model plane you're flying on? Most people don't. Therefore, not paying attention to that pre flight safety briefing is about the dumbest thing an airline passenger can do! If you suddenly find yourself you may have mere seconds to live, you're not going to be wasting those seconds asking a flight attendant "Where's the nearest emergency exit again?" You better know where it is! I always chose an aisle seat in the tail of the plane as close to an emergency exit as I could get. As I made my way to my seat, I'd physically FEEL each row of seats while counting them off so that if say, the passenger cabin was filled with smoke so dense one couldn't see, I could count and feel my way to the emergency exit. Why an aisle seat? Because most people panic in a crisis, especially one in a confined space like an airplane. The fight or flight instinct kicks in and those panicked passengers go into flight mode, trying to escape the plane by rushing into and clogging the aisle. I want to be ahead of that panicked mob and get into the aisle ahead of them and already making my way toward the nearest emergency exit. I don't want to be trapped by them in a window or middle seat and find myself climbing over seat backs (and them) to get to the emergency exit.

Similarly, I want to know where that particular airline has stashed its flotation vests in the event of a ditching in water. I want to know how to operate that floatation device before the plane starts sinking and what to do and not do. In recent years there was an airplane ditching in the ocean. I don't recall the specific flight number now but the flight attendants instructed passengers in the pre flight safety briefing NOT to inflate their life vests before they'd gotten out of the plane. They said this repeatedly even moments before the plane hit the water. Those who panicked or weren't paying attention inflated their life vests while still strapped in their seats. When that plane sank, their flotation vests pinned them against the ceiling of the plane and they all drowned. Those that escaped the plane were the ones who hadn't inflated their life vests while still in the plane, per the flight attendants' instructions.

Moral of the story: Pay attention to that pre flight safety briefing. It could save your life. Be proactive in protecting yourself because the airlines are not going to do it - with the exception of the pilot and flight crew including the flight attendants who take their responsibility for your life very seriously.

When Corporate refused to supply passengers with oxygenated smoke hoods, I went out and bought my own, packed it in my carry on and had it within quick reach during the entire flight. If the airlines weren't going to protect me in the event of more and more common fires aboard planes then I'd do it myself!

Next question: What's the best brace position to take in a crash? It seems like different airlines have different brace positions.

Correct, not even the airline industry itself can agree on a proper brace position! That's why there's currently 6 different brace positions being utilized!

Personally, I don't agree with any of them completely. And what the airlines aren't telling you is that if that airplane is going down at a sufficient rate of speed, the G forces being exerted during its descent will pin you to your seat unable to move or get into any crash position!

Yes, the back of the airplane seat in front of you was cushioned in order to protect your head upon crash impact. However, during a plane crash people are thrown about violently...and that seat in front of you has a metal frame your head, arms, legs, etc. can impact with as easily as your head contacting with the cushioned seat back.

The first thing you want to do is pull your seatbelt as tight as you possibly can - to the point it's painful. When that plane impacts the ground you're likely going to be thrown violently forward headfirst, depending on the trajectory of the plane. What I'd be doing at that point is wrapping my travel pillow around my neck backward to help protect my neck from being violently snapped in any direction, hopefully preventing me from breaking my neck in the crash. I also want to protect my head as much as possible because an unconscious person has little chance of escaping plane wreckage. I always asked the flight attendant for a pillow during the flight. In the event of a crash I could hug that to help cushion my head and vital inner organs during the crash impact.

I then want to make my body as compact as possible to prevent the crash force from flailing my limbs around all over the place, injuring them in the process. I'd have my legs and feet pressed against the front of my seat as firmly as possible. You don't want your legs and feet braced on or under the metal cross bar of the seat in front of you. That's how crash victims end up with broken legs. Again, your chances of escaping plane wreckage with broken legs aren't exactly great.

What if you have an infant to protect?

I honestly don't know the airlines rationale behind the brace position shown at left. I sure as hell wouldn't put my kid in such a position because their little head is going to impact the seat in front of them upon impact. Their heads are still soft and just like with adults, their heads can be violently slammed into the seat metal framework just as easily as the cushioned seat back.

What I'd do is wrap them in a cushion as much as possible using anything at hand - jackets, coats, pillows or whatever is at hand. If the seat beside me was empty I'd have them strapped as tightly as possible into that seat with the cushioning around them. In the diagram above that baby is strapped into place by nothing whatsoever. Therefore, the baby will be likely be thrown about even more violently than its parent. Is that parent upon impact going to be able to securely hold onto that baby? I rather doubt it.

If the seat next to me wasn't empty then I'd have that baby strapped against me, sharing the seat belt and protected by my torso when I curled myself into a ball as much as possible. But that's just me. In crashes where children were the only survivors it was because they were strapped into their own seats when the plane crashed.

The government mandates parents strap their kids into car seats even way past the age they need to be in a car seat. Next they'll be mandating parents to bubble wrap them for a trip to the grocery store. Yet on a plane traveling at hundreds of miles per hour, the airlines don't mandate infants and children have their own equivalent of car seats. Am I the only one this makes absolutely no sense to whatsoever? I don't have kids but if I was traveling with an infant or toddler I'd be spending the money on a seat for that child. Infant seats/carriers can be strapped into an airplane seat just as they can be in a car and my child's life would be worth more to me than a few hundred bucks for a plane ticket for that child.

Just my opinion on the subject...

Last question: Why are people so rude that they clap when an airline pilot just does his job and lands the plane safely?

Obviously those same people don't know the origins of clapping when a pilot landed a plane safely. That custom dates back to the earliest days of commercial aviation, when flying was still a rather risky proposition and there were no guarantees the plane would land safely. When a pilot buttered a landing, the passengers would applaud him for doing so and getting them back on the ground safely. It was not an insult, it was a compliment and it still has the same meaning today. In fact, pilots love hearing their passengers applauded them on their landing.

As for "just doing their job" obviously anyone making such a comment has never sat in a pilot's seat and/or watched what a flight crew goes through just to prepare for landing the plane! There's a several pages long checklist they must go through just to get the plane ready to land:

What's the weather conditions on the ground where they'll be landing? Is it pouring rain that the plane could possibly hydroplane if too much water is standing on the runway? Is there a snowstorm taking place that would make the runway slick? Are there severe crosswinds that the pilot would have to sideslip the plane in order to land safely in those crosswinds? (Sideslipping is landing the plane sideways)

Simply doing their job? Would you like to see a complete checklist the pilot and flight crew go through in order to fly for example, a Boeing 737? Here's the checklist in pdf form so you can clearly read it.

Do you honestly think all there is to landing a commercial airplane is that the pilot and his/her crew just line the plane up with the runway and set 'er down? Hardly! Landing any plane much less a commercial plane is far, far more complex than people know.

That crew is preparing to land that plane lonnnnnnng before they're anywhere close to having the runway in sight.

No, the autopilot doesn't land the plane automatically for them, allowing them to sit back in their seats and eat bon bons while the autopilot lands the plane. They program the autopilot to help GUIDE them in landing. The autopilot merely locks onto the airport ILS to allow the autopilot to line the plane up with the runway and keep the plane at the proper altitude while landing. It provides the pilot with vertical and lateral guidance in landing the plane.

Our pilots spend thousands of hours in simulators and in the air preparing them to pilot a plane in virtually any conditions, even under emergency conditions no one ever suspects will actually happen. They must check out on any specific model of plane they fly to demonstrate they have the skill necessary to operate that specific model of plane and know its specific technology inside and out. They don't hop from the seat of a turbo prop into the pilot's seat of a Triple 7 carrying 438 passengers and take off with them!

How many of us do or did all of this simply to "do our jobs"? Our pilots and flight crews are phenomenal. I've seen pilots make landings that can only be termed "miraculous" and under the worst conditions they can possibly be faced with.

So by all means applaud them for a job well done! They deserve it.