Flight For Truth

Coming February 2020!

“It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. 

Fiction has to make sense”

Mark Twain

Corruption runs deep within the airline industry when Captain Darby Bradshaw is grounded and forced into a psychiatric evaluation in response to reporting safety concerns to senior leadership at Global Air Lines. What she doesn’t know is that her removal is nothing short of a conspiracy to silence her safety concerns. Privatization of ATC, approval of drone operated commercial aircraft, short-cutting training, and the untimely crash of a Boeing 737 MAX are all tied to Darby’s report. Her resultant research is about to uncover the truth. How high does this go? All the way to the White House. Not even her friends FAA Manager Kathryn Jacobs, DOT Secretary John McAllister, or Psychiatrist Linda Madden, can do anything to help her. 

The question is—can she save herself?

This is the fifth in the Fight For Series where truth is scarier than fiction. Flight For Justice coming soon, where it’s not about truth and justice, but what you can prove in court. 

DEDICATION:

Flight For Truth  is dedicated to all those people who have faced an atrocity due to the abuse of power. Losing control of your life due the unethical decisions of others feels like a passenger in a plane that is going down. But remember one thing—as long as you survive your life is not over, it will just be different. Make that difference count and fight for truth. 

Read the series and get ready 

for what happens next!

The First Novel...

Imagine writing a novel, Flight For Control, with the theme of mental health embedded within the world of aviation. And then two months after your novel is released a Jet Blue captain is locked out of the flight deck by his first officer, after he suffers from a mental breakdown. What if he hadn't been locked out? And then four years later a Germanwings first officer successfully locks the captain out of the fight deck and flies his plane into the mountains. Read more here...

 The Second Novel...

 

Imagine writing a novel and Asiana crashes in San Francisco, and you have a scene that mirrors that event. And then your pilots are flying an A330 to Singapore as a storm builds, they get caught ... and two years later Air Asia takes the same route and flies into that storm but crashes. Fiction that mirrors truth.  Read more here... 

The Third Novel...

Imagine being an author working on your PhD at the same time you are an airline pilot. What if all those worlds merged into one exciting adventure, where truth was scarier than fiction and the lines between your worlds blurred? You would write the novel Flight For Survival.

Read more here...

The Fourth Novel... 

It's insane how airlines are cutting training at the expense of safety. Insanity extends to the FAA, where industry issues of automation dependency, lack of hand flying skills, confusion, and lack of understanding stem back to 1996, yet these issues are more prevalent than ever. Imagine what happens to the person challenging the system...

Read more here...

 All books can be purchased, 
with autographs, on this blog!

And....

Available on Amazon: 

Flight For Control 

and

 Flight For Safety
and
Flight For Survival

and

Flight For Sanity

Amazon Comments are so much appreciated!!! 

Enjoy the Journey!
XO Karlene

Prologue to Decision Making

Connie co-pilot caper

Email from Captain Wright. 

"This e-mail and its attachment relates to the value of experience in decision making. Some of your readers may find this story to be of interest. You could say that your novels all deal with this theme. 

You may have read Ernest Gann’s autobiographical volume “Fate is the Hunter” describing various episodes from his career in aviation. Ernie was one of those people whose aviation exploits define an era that most likely will never be again. You might be familiar with his “Connie co-pilot caper”. 

Being short of funds and finding a Connie co-pilot job “up for grabs”, he presented himself for the position believing that the fact that he had never been in a Connie before could be overcome. As he and the Captain walked out to the aircraft, a plan formed in his mind. Expecting the Captain to be of an autocratic bent typical of Captains in that era, he figured the Captain would start the engines and conduct the taxi and take-off at which point Ernie would have observed enough to make a credible showing of competence. 

His plan went awry when the Captain turned to him and said, ”You start the engines and handle the taxi and take-off”. His cover being blown, there was nothing for Ernie to do but admit he had never been in a Connie before. The Captain’s unexpected response was, “Neither have I”, so they both deplaned and looked for other employment.

Perhaps lesser known was Ernie’s passion for seafaring which became the basis for several of his other novels and possibly responsible for his son George choosing seafaring as a profession. George graduated from California Maritime Academy the year prior to my arrival there and went to work for Chevron Shipping in their tankers running to Alaska. His final voyage bore some linkage to the excerpt from my memoirs included in the attachment describing an incident occurring 45 years ago while sailing as Chief Mate on the Sea-Land Alaska run."

The story tomorrow... 

Enjoy the Journey!

XO Karlene 

Non-Reporting Culture

There's a Sign! 

Photo from: blogs.valpo.edu

Yesterday I wrote about the elements of Safety Culture.  One of the easiest ways to identify if your organization has a positive safety culture is to ask employees if they are comfortable reporting safety related issues. If you hear employees speak of fear in reporting with comments such as, "I'm not saying anything, I need to keep my job", then the chances are your company may be lacking a positive reporting culture. Personally I think a reporting culture is one of the most important elements of a safety culture. 

Photo from mentalhealthy.co.uk

Without a reporting culture, supported by open communication, that encourages and rewards reporting safety related information and is free from retaliation, the opportunities to demonstrate flexibility will be non-existent, and there will be no opportunity to identify if the culture is just, informed, or provide areas for learning. Systems must be established that enable employees to report without fear of retaliation to support a positive safety culture.

 

I found the above photos on line. The statistics are appalling. During the final quarter of my doctoral course, I began researching elements of safety culture and associated retaliation. What I learned was nothing short of shocking:
 

I know of seven pilots, from multiple airlines, that have been pulled from flight status with a fitness for duty challenge due to mental health accusations in retaliation for reporting safety issues, and 24 additional pilots (I have yet to speak with) have been identified to be off duty for a similar reason. Airlines are using a mental health clause to retaliate against employees who have reported safety issues, and they can do it to anyone for any reason.  

These pilots are being paid because the company thinks it is only illegal to fire an employee for reporting safety. But they are ordered to go through horrendous psychiatric evaluations, with questioning and interrogation that nobody should be exposed to. They are set aside for months at a time, isolated from their airline family, humiliated, kept from flying, not allowed to maintain currency in the simulator, haunted by nightmares of the fiasco, and many end up just quitting. Therefore, the company thinks they are not liable for unjustly firing them.

The fact that the Germanwings crash is being used in support of and justification for this retaliatory tactic is one of the most criminal things an organization could do. Not only does this methodology harm the psyche of the pilot, that will be carried with them for life, but it creates a stigma for pilots to self report if they needed help. If this is a punishment from a manager, why would anyone who really had a problem come fourth? They wouldn't.
 

Mental health problems are a disability, not a punishment. For anyone to mock the disabled, by using their illness as a tactic to punish an employee who is attempting to make their work environment better, should take careful consideration of what they are doing. Many pilots who are facing this retaliation think there is nothing they can do until they are fired, that's not true.

Join me Tomorrow to Learn 

Your Rights!  

Enjoy the Journey!

XO Karlene 

Author of:

Flight For Series

Flight To Success Be the Captain of your Life

I am Awesome. The ABCs of me.