Fear-baiting much? The Wall Street Journal and its afternoon podcast on October 7th led with this provocative headline; Rogue Pilots Are a Growing Safety Threat. This was the second time in a year the financial newspaper wrote an aviation safety story rich with innuendo, poor on facts, but ultimately sure to be discussed at dinner parties and on Reddit.
The article begins with this statement, “At least 800 people worldwide have died since 2005 in airline crashes that have been suspected by U.S. government officials” (emphasis mine) “or confirmed to be intentionally caused by pilots, according to accident data.”
Well, of the four accidents referenced, only one has been confirmed as an intentional act, GermanWings Flight 9525 in 2015. This crime killed 150 people.
The other three accidents underpinning the thesis have no official conclusion. They are the accidents merely “suspected by US government officials” to be caused by pilots. None of these officials are named, nor is their organization identified. Are they speaking from a position of knowledge or repeating office cooler conversation?
These accidents are under investigation by other countries. The US is an accredited representative because the plane maker in all three cases is Boeing, an American company. So who knows how much information is being shared with Americans or how much attention the Americans are paying to the details?
I mention the latter possibility because while writing about the Air India 171 crash, I reached out to a fellow investigator working with the NTSB to discuss the fact that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s ram air turbine or RAT was deployed right after rotation, before fuel to the engines ceased. This is highly unusual. No experienced investigator has explained how this could happen at that point in the flight.
But my contact was unaware of it. So clearly, not all information being gathered by the Indian investigators is being relayed to the Americans. Possibly, America’s sidelined role (as reported in Tangel’s November 2025 story) has resulted in the NTSB’s being unfamiliar with the details of the Indian investigation. But how could they have missed the dozens of YouTube videos which show the RAT extended during takeoff?
The Air India crash (260 dead in 2025) probe is not finished. Pilots and independent air safety investigators have presented evidence to India’s Supreme Court showing that before fuel to the engines ceased flowing, the airplane was chirping multiple failures in addition to the mysterious deployment of the RAT. The airplane’s unusually troubled history has been widely reported by Indian journalists and aviation attorneys in India and in the United States. But the WSJ has accepted the “US government officials” conclusion that rogue pilots are to blame.
Malaysia 370, (239 dead in 2014) is another accident used as an example of homicidal pilots. Without wreckage, black boxes or other convincing documents or evidence, Malaysia released a report essentially shrugging its governmental shoulders. It stated it could not rule out the pilot. This is the justification for including Flight 370 in the WSJ’s rogue’s gallery.
But the article does not mention that the Malaysians could also not rule out third party interference, or that the Australian investigators who participated in the search for the missing Boeing 777, concluded that pilot incapacitation due to hypoxia was the most likely cause of the plane’s disappearance. The Australians noted that hypoxia has been responsible for several other airliner crashes that look a lot like MH 370.
China Eastern 5735 (132 dead in 2023) is the last example, though officials in China had no comment and the accident investigation is not complete. Nevertheless, in an unusual move, reported here in May, the Chinese investigators asked the Americans to download information from the plane’s black boxes. In the process, the National Transportation Safety Board determined fuel flow switches to the Boeing 737 were shut off in the cockpit. What that meant and whether it indicated human action, was not part of the NTSB’s contribution.
In fact, the NTSB said it was left in the dark about the contents of the cockpit voice recorder. It only extracted the audio as requested by China and did not listen, translate or copy it. Because there was no transcription requested, Honeywell and Boeing also did not participate.
As a sophisticated reader of aviation safety news, what I see in this Wall Street Journal reporting is theories based internet and YouTube speculation, garnished with a dash of “unnamed US officials”. But let’s look at the numbers.
Last year I did a comprehensive examination of airliner crashes going back 50 years. Globally there were 906 fatal disasters. Six of them were believed to have been the result of deliberate pilot action. That’s two-thirds of one percent. Every other traveler’s nightmare scenario is more likely, mid-air collision, flying into terrain, running off the end of the runway.
In the aftermath of the FlyDubai near disaster over Saudi Arabia late last month, air travelers are surely wondering if the pilot on their next flight might be plotting to kill them. And while the chance of that is infinitesimal given the fact that there are more than 100-thousand commercial flights every day, there appear to be multiple governmental failures related to the drama on FlyDubai’s flight to Israel.
The 29-year old, suspect, co-pilot Hamam Al Hammami was removed from flying for Oman Air when the airline became concerned about radical views he expressed on social media. Following that, he spent several months unsuccessfully applying to fly for Royal Air Maroc. He was hired by FlyDubai early this year. Even then, though, his nationality should have prohibited him from working flights to Israel. But he ended up right-seating on a flight to Tel Aviv where he allegedly tried to commandeer the plane and fly it into the ground.
These multiple failures in indicate security lapses with implications beyond the cockpit. The WSJ might spend less time creating pilot bugaboos and more time reporting how this particular rogue pilot had access to a FlyDubai cockpit headed for Israel.
In fact, Larry Vance, who was deputy head of the Swissair 111 investigation, has for all intents & purposes proved that Malaysia 370 was deliberately ditched in the Indian Ocean rather than crashing there. He wrote a book about it (“MH370 Mystery Solved”) which I found utterly convincing.
He explains his work on MH370 in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3NQ1jCxBig
With the caveat that I did not read Larry Vance’s book, his theory as he presented it in interviews with Australian journalists do not match the known facts. The French examination of the MH 370 flaperon show it was stowed at the time the wing hit the water. Satellite data shows the plane exceeded its design speed on descent (12 to 20-thousand feet per minute) and very likely came apart before hitting the ocean. I reported this 10 years ago back, when Vance’s theory was making the rounds. https://christinenegroni.com/australia-mh370-pilot-suicide-theory-flies-face-facts/
Very good report, Christine, thank you. Pointing out sensational reporting by the likes of the WSJ is worthy of exposure.
Regarding MH370, having worked accident investigations for an airline and for a major airframe OEM it’s worth noting that when airplanes, especially large jets, upon crashing into oceans there’s always debris fields, oil slicks, etc. with 370 there was nothing. The pilots switched off xponders and ACARS reporting/flight following – why? Of course we’ll never know.
The Australian’s spent considerable resources searching multiple times for MH370 with nothing much conclusive.
The Air India 170 in my mind is still a conundrum especially with the the RAT deploying as it did. I think the silence on anything says much.
Finally I will say this. Vetting pilots is most important in the aviation industry. UAL is worth exposing on one their pilots with disturbing social media posts about October 7.
When I worked for a major airframe OEM and traveled the world I advised the travel department on certain airlines to not book me on based on their poor safety record.
Christine, I think you should open the link & listen to his talk (forget the book). Vance points out damage to the flaperon indicating that it could not possibly have been stowed.
He also makes clear that the pieces washing up in East Africa reflect a ditching, by virtue of the fact that they are precisely the pieces that would break off in a ditching.
He believes the absence of other types of debris shows that the airframe sank basically intact.
Swissair 111 was shattered into 2 million pieces.
Your last comments sums up the situation perfectly. Why is any pilot with an online track record of religious extremism and violence strong enough to get get him fired from a previous carrier flying in any cockpit. Perhaps a little more attention needs to be paid to the FAA requirement that to qualify for an Air Transport Certificate a pilot must be “of good moral character” …..slippery slope for sure but advocating death to innocent civilians is certainly a no brainer….