People often ask me what I do. I work in a standards development organization for consensus aviation standards. It is hard to capture exactly what I do while working here. I edit documents. I help groups come to consensus. I schedule meetings and sendoff teleconferencing invitations. I navigate the documents into the publishing process. We are an organization of 8 people, including the President and CEO. So I do a little bit of everything that needs to be done.

But, I was trained as an engineer. So, I also understand what is in the standard and why. Not to the nitty gritty details of every formula, but the place the standard has in the aviation ecosystem. It gives me an interesting perspective. For a while as a working engineer, I did platform systems engineering to see how all the different technologies – GPS¹Global Positioning Systems now called Global Navigation Satellite Systems, TAWS²Terrain Awareness Warning Systems, ADS-B³Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast, MFD⁴Multi-Function Displays – all the communications, navigation, and surveillance information – weave together to let us fly quickly and cheaply from one end of the globe to the other.

So, after the last month of chaos in aviation, I have gotten several questions including: Do I think it is still safe to fly?

My answer doesn’t make people happy. I never thought it was safe enough to fly, but I will fly when the benefit of flying outweighs the fear in my heart.

Is it less safe to fly today, in my opinion, than it was January 19, 2025⁵Yes, I mean the 19th and not the 29th. I am talking about the system as a whole not a single catastrophe.? Probably not. But depending on how things evolve in aviation, it may become less safe. 

The problem is it’s complicated, and people don’t like to hear about complications. I, like everyone else, like simple answers. The answer is it depends on what fails and what order the failures take place. Loosing your information on how high you are above terrain is a failure⁶Hi there radar altimeters. I could write a whole letter on their interesting space in the aviation system.. If it happens while you are flying over the ocean, the chances of a collision is very small. If it happens in the area of approaches and departures near an airport, it is more concerning. Context is everything when the answer flips from yes to no.

My biggest concern today, and for the future, is there seems to be a changing attitude in people who make things for aviation⁷I used to talk about the aviation safety pink-swear that you learn when you start working for one of the gigantic aerospace companies.. There is less concern about the context of where your technology fits in to the bigger picture. It is starting to resemble our political ecosystem where individuals don’t care if they get agreement with anyone else — they just care that they get to make their own choices. I want what I want, and I will do what I want, and the ecosystem should change to accommodate me because I am not asking for that much.

That is the issue. By not caring what another plane, another system, or another aviation airspace assumes in their design, it is getting less safe. Isolation leads to misunderstanding. Communication breaks down and assumptions can lead to tragedies. This is true if it is between nations or if its s between engineered systems. Human choices made in secret can be corrosive to relationships. And in the end, planes fly because the relationships between the different computer systems and the people using them are known. I am afraid those relationships are about to become unknown.

Unknown unknowns hurt individual people in every aspect of live. In aviation, it just makes a big headline and gives everyone a chance to assign blame.

In simple terms, technical standards give you the game board so you know how to operate⁸In human relations, we sometimes call this manners — the rules to interact with others..

That said, it is never one failure that causes a crash. It is the environment and the execution and the human skill of a pilot working together. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you can recover from the failure and a hero is born Sometimes a tragedy occurs.

Another aspect of my job is to facilitate conversations between people who don’t like to converse very much. So being there, where they are meeting, makes a difference. I like to say I probably only need to be in the meeting 5 minutes at a time, but I never know when the five minutes when I am there will make a difference. So, I try to be present at the meetings as much as possible. If not in the room, then on the phone.

I would love to be able to take the position – I will just be the Charlie ⁹Like Charlie from Charlie’s Angeles of aviation standards and always work from my basement doing my job happily never getting on a plane again and just spreading my wisdom from a safe place. But that isn’t the answer. If I believe in what I do, I need to put my skin in the game and get on the plane and be there. Show my face. Be part of the solution.

So, yes, I will keep flying to the meetings where I can learn and guide and influence and understand what the questions are and who the stakeholders are and how to solve them.

I don’t like it. I have never liked it. On a commercial flight I feel trapped and controlled and that disturbs me every time. 

I will keep flying because it helps me do my job better. I will keep flying because I haven’t seen all of Iceland yet and I still want to. I will keep flying because while it isn’t deterministic that I will get there safely or on time, I know and respect a whole bunch of people who dedicate their careers and lives to make flying one of the safest ways to get from Point A to Point B. I admire these guys and I trust they listen, learn, and are doing they best they can.

Is it safe to fly? Nothing is completely safe. But my discomfort makes me less trusting. Being less trusting makes me ask questions. And my questions might move the needle, even a little bit, to make what someone does more transparent. Transparency can make things safer.

There is this scene from the television show The West Wing during the government shutdown where Josh tells Donna she made one free-throw that resulted in the team getting the most free-throws in an NBA game. I don’t always make the shot, but the trying matters. That is why I keep doing what I do, and why I will still get on that cramped, smelly, germ ridden airplane which is a testament to the power of engineering.