It’s not easy to find a lot of people who are willing to go back and revisit the early days of Barack Obama’s presidency. Conservatives don’t want to relive the whole nightmare, for obvious reasons. And for their part, Democrats would rather move on, too. They don’t particularly want to dwell on Obama’s “Russian reset,” for example, where he told us that Vladimir Putin wasn’t really a bad guy. That kind of thinking isn’t exactly compatible with Democrats’ current narrative. Nor are Democrats interested in reminding anyone of Obama’s promise to lower healthcare costs, or his promise to close Guantanamo Bay, or his promise to stop the weather from changing, and so on. So if there’s bipartisan agreement on anything, it’s that Obama’s presidency isn’t worth talking about anymore.
But there is one moment from the early Obama years that’s suddenly become relevant again. I’m talking about the crash of a Colgan Air passenger plane, which was flying under the brand name of Continental Airlines. The crash occurred in February of 2009, just a month after Obama’s inauguration. It was the fourth in a string of crashes involving regional airliners from 2005 to 2009. 50 people died, including one person on the ground. An investigation revealed that the pilots — one man and one woman — were overworked and underpaid. They were also objectively bad pilots, at least on that particular night. They weren’t paying attention to their instruments, to the point that they stalled their plane while on approach for landing. And then, when the aircraft warned them of the stall, they panicked and turned a bad situation into a catastrophe.
In the wake of that crash, the Obama administration mandated a series of changes that, taken together, amount to a major overhaul of the entire aviation industry. One of the big changes was that all pilots — whether they flew for a regional carrier or a major airline — needed to have hundreds of hours of additional training before they could be certified. Pilots were also entitled to more rest breaks. There were several other new regulations, too. And for the most part, no one objected. It was a pretty uncontroversial move. After all, when planes are crashing all over the place, it makes sense to require better training and more rest for the pilots.
But all of these new regulations created a new problem. Airlines that were already struggling with a pilot shortage began having even more difficulty finding enough pilots to fly their routes. In an industry that was concerned with safety, the solution to this problem is obvious: you can either raise salaries to attract more pilots, or you can cut down on flights. But the aviation industry, with the encouragement of the Obama administration, decided on a different approach: They began appealing to so-called “diverse” applicants and adopted a much more lax, carefree workplace culture. Just like the FAA, which lowered standards to attract different demographics, airlines created programs to attract women and racial minorities. Then, after the COVID mandates decimated the aviation industry like so many others, these efforts went into overdrive.
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The defenders of these diversity initiatives insisted that standards weren’t being compromised. They argued that the pool of applicants was being expanded, but that all pilots were still competent. They maintained that line of argument even after an Amazon cargo plane operated by Atlas Air crashed in 2019 while landing in Houston, when the pilot inexplicably steered the plane directly into the water. An investigation revealed that the pilot, a man from the Caribbean nation of Antigua named Conrad Aska, had repeatedly failed flight training, but was promoted anyway. His family even sued Amazon, alleging that Conrad Aska never should’ve been allowed into the cockpit, based on his sheer incompetence. But both Amazon and Atlas Air — which repeatedly preached about the importance of diversity — had no problem handing Conrad Aska the keys to a wide-body Boeing cargo plane.
The defenders of diversity initiatives also downplayed the crash of Southwest Airlines Flight 345, which suffered a landing-gear collapse while landing at La Guardia in 2013. The whole plane was totaled; it was a $15 million loss. Several people were seriously injured. This is a crash you probably haven’t heard much about, even though given recent events, it’s once again very relevant.
This is footage taken by a passenger onboard Southwest Flight 345. It shows the moment the front landing gear collapsed as soon as the plane touched the ground after a very rapid descent. Watch:
An investigation revealed that the captain of this flight was a woman who had multiple complaints filed against her by her co-pilots. In this instance, she allowed the plane to descend rapidly towards the ground without properly configuring the flaps for landing. And then, when she knew the plane was going too fast, she didn’t abort the landing. Instead, she ordered the first officer to “get down,” and then she aggressively took control of the plane herself and flew it, nose-first, into the runway.
So how was a pilot this incompetent allowed to serve as a captain ferrying passengers around on a jetliner? A few weeks ago, I received a tip from a pilot at Southwest who told me that this particular captain was notorious for inappropriate and dangerous behavior in the cockpit. A lot of pilots didn’t want to fly with her. The captain, for her part, thought the complaints were really about her gender or her sexuality, instead of her competence. And apparently, Southwest agreed.
This was not a widely reported episode, for the simple reason that it’s extremely inconvenient to proponents of so-called “diversity” in aviation. We’re required to believe that diversity improves the functioning of every organization, whether it’s Harvard University or Southwest Airlines. So most media outlets buried the story. They kept the identity of the woman pilot confidential, even after Southwest finally terminated her employment following the crash. Very few news reports mentioned her gender at all, or any other identifying information about her. They did the same thing with Conrad Aska and many other pilots. They just didn’t talk about them.
For a while, this strategy worked. Diversity initiatives continued for many years without any interruption, across all major airlines. But the problem, of course, is that you can’t downplay airline crashes forever. Eventually the crashes become more noticeable. Eventually people start dying, and not just in cargo planes. And at that point — which is the point we’ve now reached — the toll of diversity becomes harder and harder to deny. And then people will do the rational thing. They’ll start looking more closely at what exactly is going on in the aviation industry. And in particular, they’ll start looking at who exactly is flying the aircraft that keep crashing.
First, of course, there was the disastrous mid-air collision that was apparently caused, at least in part, by a female Black Hawk pilot near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. This pilot was clearly flying too high, for reasons that aren’t clear. She also failed to see a jet that was directly in her path. Based on the most recent information we have from the NTSB, it’s clear that, about three minutes before the collision, the Black Hawk pilot was warned by her instructor that she was flying 100 feet too high for the area they were flying in. She was also warned about the passenger jet by air traffic control, which also provided the passenger jet’s location, well over a minute before impact. But she never took any evasive action whatsoever. The pilots of the American Airlines plane put their plane into a maximum nose-up climb just one second before impact, so clearly they eventually saw something. But the woman flying the Black Hawk never did.
Then, earlier this week, we all witnessed the Endeavor Air crash at Toronto’s airport.
🚨 JUST IN: Delta Air Lines is now offering a $30,000 payoff to victims of their plane crash, just two days after it occurred
Are they trying to pay people off to get ahead of the impending DEI pilot revelations?
Delta & operator Endeavor, famous for their “all female crews,”… pic.twitter.com/HBtEVXtxoH
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) February 19, 2025
The plane clearly came in too quickly, just like the Southwest Airlines jet that I mentioned earlier. And then the landing gear collapsed and the plane flipped over. Based on air traffic control audio, it appears that one pilot — the one who was presumably handling the radios, instead of flying the plane — was a male. But we still don’t have the identity of the pilot who was actually flying the plane. Reports from various sources online, citing tips from airline pilots and firefighters at Toronto’s airport, suggest that the pilot who was flying was a woman. But we don’t know for sure because no one in the government, or at Delta Airlines, will tell us.
If it’s true, that wouldn’t exactly be a surprise. Endeavor Air and Delta have gone out of their way in recent years to advertise how many female pilots they have. They’ve also done a full-court press to attract more female applicants. In fact, as you may have seen, Endeavor’s official TikTok and X accounts are obsessed with the idea of so-called “unmanned flights,” where no men are in the crew. So they’re not just pro-women; they’re actively anti-men. And if I’m being honest, whoever’s putting together Endeavor’s social media posts seems to have a sense of humor about the situation. Here for example is one recent tweet from Endeavor:
Buckle up ladies and gentlemen, your flight is unmanned today. #girlpower
📸: Caitlyn M., FO, CRJ-900 pic.twitter.com/vL7ec2P3fX
— Endeavor Air (@EndeavorAir) June 6, 2022
On the surface, I guess this is supposed to be an empowering, girlboss message. If that’s the case, then why does it begin with the warning, “Buckle up”? It’s like going to a restaurant where they tell you, “Enjoy your food presented by an all-female kitchen. Hope you brought a bucket!” It’s almost like whoever’s writing this post knows something we don’t.
And then there’s this now-infamous TikTok footage from Endeavor Air, featuring a few more girlbosses. Some of these clips are so on-the-nose that it seems like they were prepared by a male intern somewhere who’s tired of all the DEI initiatives, and he was trying to find some desperate way to communicate that message without losing his internship in the process. Watch:
Yes, the lyrics there are, “Live fast, die young, bad girls do it well.” That’s what you hear after you read the caption, “Leave the flying to the men? I don’t think so.” Again, this is the official messaging of an airline that’s supposedly committed to safety and competence. They want you to know that you’ll have an all-female flight crew that loves to “live fast and die young.” That is just about the worst possible mantra for an airline pilot.
When I looked at the rest of Endeavor’s TikTok account, I found that these clips are not rare exceptions to the norm. Quite the opposite. Pretty much every single post involves women dancing or miming the words to a song of some kind. It’s like a sorority’s TikTok channel, instead of the official social media account of a company that’s responsible for ferrying thousands of passengers across the sky at high speeds in aluminum tubes every single day.
Here’s just a small selection of what I’m talking about:
It’s like they’re running an adult daycare. They’re not even pretending to convey the idea that they’re serious people who should be entrusted with your life.
The description for Endeavor Air’s account on TikTok reads, “CR-slay everyday” — which I assume is a reference to the CRJ aircraft that they fly. This is how you would present your company if you wanted to attract the ditziest, least responsible and least intelligent applicants imaginable. And based on recent events, it seems like that’s exactly what Endeavor got.
But as easy as it would be to blame this on Endeavor, which is a relatively small subsidiary of Delta, the truth is that this is a much deeper problem. It goes to the top. And to illustrate that, here’s footage from the pinned tweet of Delta Airlines’ main account at the time of the Endeavor Air crash. Watch:
So this whole “slay” concept is apparently a big deal at both Endeavor and Delta. They think it’s a really important message to communicate. They’re girlbosses who “slay.” Of course, “slay” means “to kill.” And that’s what you can expect to happen now when you board these planes, evidently. They’ll slay you. With their flying skills.
As painful as this footage is, I will give Delta some credit. Yesterday, in an interview with CBS, Delta’s CEO was given an opportunity to blame Donald Trump for the crash in Toronto. Yes, the corporate press is going with the narrative that Donald Trump is responsible for a pilot’s terrible crash landing in a foreign country. And in response to this setup, the Delta CEO immediately shot the question down, which led to a pretty entertaining facial expression from the CBS anchor. Watch:
Notice there’s no question from CBS about the identity of the pilot, or her qualifications, or whether Endeavor regrets posting nonstop music video TikToks for the past five years. Instead the question is about how Donald Trump is to blame. This has been the approach of so many establishment interests ever since the aviation industry began experiencing a series of crashes more than a decade ago. They deflect and they minimize responsibility, all while insisting that the underlying system is working fine.
But with every major airline disaster, these deflections become less and less effective. The more they hide information about who’s flying these planes, the more people will come to realize what’s actually going on. And at a certain point — a point that’s rapidly approaching — no one will fly on a plane unless they know who’s flying it. People will demand thorough reviews of pilots, like they demand reviews of restaurants before making a reservation. That won’t be a sustainable model for most airlines. But for people who want to fly with some peace of mind — free from the complete and total incompetence that Obama-era diversity initiatives have wrought, so many years later— it’ll be the only option worth considering.
