AIRLINE PILOT REVIEW OF MOVIE: "FLIGHT"

REVIEW OF DENZEL WASHINGTON MOVIE—“FLIGHT”

 

My, how the times are a changin’… Last night dozens of current and retired Black airline pilots, flight attendants and the Atlanta Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen assembled at an east Atlanta theater to watch a premier ( presented by the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals- OBAP ) of the aviation catastrophe film, “Flight,” starring superstar actor, Denzel Washington. For those reading this who are already “white knuckle” passengers, you might want to skip this one. That’s not because it wasn’t a great Hollywood production but due to the horrifying scenarios offered to moviegoers.

Any professional pilot’s worst nightmare is being confronted with emergency situations in an aircraft that exceed the limits of the pilot’s capability and experience. In the movie “Flight” the audience gets a microscopic view of a pilot’s greatest horror in aviation, catastrophic mechanical failure of a tail section component in flight after flying out of severe turbulence. But that’s not the worst part of it; Capt “Whip” Williams, portrayed by Denzel, is a divorcee, living on the wild side as a bachelor pilot, drinking and drugging himself into an uncontrolled downward spiral of alcoholism. A solidly crafted script propels “Capt Whip” into a horror show flight disaster after an all-night, booze and drug laden love fest with his flight attendant sweetie pie, who displays audience shocking frontal nudity in the opening layover hotel bedroom scene.

While the movie audience was constantly shaking their heads in disbelief at the miraculous airmanship displayed by an inebriated Capt Whip, most pilots in the audience were entranced with focusing on the accuracy of detail in choreographing the inflight emergency for the film. Some pilots expressed concern that the protagonist (Denzel) was a roguish, amoral Black airline pilot. However, Capt Whip’s loss of professional discipline in ignoring crew rest rules regarding drinking, drugging and flying lacked plausibility in today’s commercial pilot world. No-Notice drug and alcohol testing at the airport and for flight physicals would prevent pilots with alcohol or drug issues from hiding under the radar for very long. Testing positive for alcohol or illegal drugs would result in immediate termination and loss of pilot licenses. No pilot who loves his or her career wants this to happen. The film script didn’t mention the Transportation Security Authority (TSA) which is currently another safeguard in commercial aviation to detect crewmembers not fit to fly.

The movie script of “Flight” would have been more plausible back in the seventies, before TSA and No-Notice drug and alcohol testing. That was a period when marijuana and cocaine use were the new fad, “designer drugs,” in society and many pilots filled by nature with the machismo of adventure enjoyed affluent lifestyles of partying and flying on the edge. This penchant for excess was fueled by a high stress vocation, grueling long duty days with frequent situations that tested a pilot’s skills and decision making to the limits. Any aviator’s worse nightmare was to report for work exhausted and hung-over and then be confronted with an inflight emergency. That is precisely what Denzel Washington faced as Capt Whip Williams: a catastrophic mechanical failure of a major flight control that led to a crash in which 96 of a 102 passengers and crew survived. The real drama of “Flight,” however, is portrayed in the struggle for Capt Whip to face the truth of his addictions.

Interwoven into the movie themes were sensitive peeks at issues of religious conviction, philosophies of life and human kindness. John Goodman and Don Cheadle were outstanding as Capt Whip’s Pusher-Man buddy and union lawyer, respectively. The private tormented lifestyle of Capt Whip through the accident investigation makes for gripping suspense which had audience members on the edge of the their seats frequently. The film has a wonderful surprise outcome that catches the audience completely off guard, as Capt Whip emerges with redemption and liberation. Denzel, as usual, was magnificent. Great Movie!

 

The reviewer is a retired airline Captain, Brian H. Settles, a former Air Force combat veteran and author of a personal memoire of flying titled, No Reason for Dying: A Reluctant Combat Pilot’s Confession of Hypocrisy
WWW.CAPTBRIANSETTLES.COM

TO THE FATHERS WHO DESERVE FATHERS' DAY

 ON FATHERING: Nurturing the Gain from Pain

It all started for me in the Lincoln, Nebraska State Orphanage where I was deposited by a seventeen year old unwed mother who surrendered to the pressures not to keep me. The ( my ) biological father was a state champion level high jumper who was drafted into the Army and never knew his girlfriend was with child. He never recovered from the trauma of his mama’s murder at the hands of an irate suitor, never married and lived a wasted life battling alcohol and heroin Joneses.

The greatest blessing of my life was visited upon me being adopted out of that orphanage by Bernice and Howard Settles, who took me back to Muncie, Indiana to grow up.  Daddy was ex-jock who cultivated a lifestyle of womanizing and macho prerogative, a factory laborer lost in the fantasy of becoming a liquor store owner.  Mama sought to live the solid Christian existence pursuing the upward mobility dreams of educated Black Americans emerging from the suffering of the Civil Rights struggle. She held onto a conviction that anyone who put a glass of whiskey to their lips was doomed to a life of rakish and irresponsible behavior.  How two totally opposite souls could have forged a marriage was one of many great mysteries. Their marriage finally cracked under the weight of Daddy’s infidelity and they divorced when I was eight but not before a baby sister had been adopted out of my same Nebraska orphanage.

Mama had a tough time of it after Daddy left home until she got that good job as a librarian at the Muncie Public Library. Through all her struggles to raise us, Daddy never paid child support. Rather than send him to penitentiary, we let him off the hook, all the time my sister and me wondering how he could deny his children the love of financial support.  My love for sports ushered in a bond with Daddy that was dependent on my forgiveness of his abuse of Mama and financial neglect. He never understood who I was, suggesting it was foolish to become an Air Force pilot when there was lots of money to be made lawyering  for the small time dope dealers in Indiana.  His most profound counsel to me about getting trapped in a teen pregnancy: “If you goin’ to be screwing these broads, use a rubber.”  I think I was looking for a bit loftier moral guidance.  Inspired by Daddy’s poor example of Fatherhood, I vowed to myself that I was going to be somebodies’ Daddy when I grew up and try to do it right.

My aviation career was not what I had in mind but I survived two hundred missions flying jet fighters in Vietnam and spent most of my adult life as an airline pilot raising two sons, the greatest joy of this journey.  I loved being a Father and I made a lot of mistakes but I wanted to raise strong, independent sons who would not crack under the first strains of life, sons who would be unstoppable.  I could never have known I would spend most of my fatherhood raising my sons as a single parent father after their mother and I lost our conjugal way.  I wasn’t “The Great Santini” but what follows are some of the philosophies that guided my parenting mission:

1.     Be honest and tell the truth. Stand for Integrity

2.     Know that there are consequences for actions; make sure you are okay with the cost. 

3.     You get lunch money allowance, food, clothing and a roof over your head. If you want the fancy stuff, you do extra chores or neighborhood work to earn extra money for the designer items.

4.     You have responsibilities around the house, ie rooms get cleaned up, floors get mopped and vacuumed, dishes get done and you will learn to cook a few easy meals for yourself.

5.     You will learn how to wash and dry clothes in the machines and fold them up.

6.     Don’t spend all the money you make; learn to have a savings for special needs in the future.

7.     When they were small, I was slow to pick them up when they fell down, or not at all if I knew they were okay, ingraining  in them to pick themselves up and move on.

8.     Stand for possibility and understand that courage, commitment and great effort are required for success in life.  The Life that Is Loved requires work and dedication. Dreams don’t always come true but you still work for them as if it is so.

9.     Accept others for how they present themselves, being careful to remember things aren’t always what they seem.

10.                         Never be abusive to women; learn to be understanding and tolerant.

11.                         Be leery of the appearance of a free lunch.  Don’t seek one.

12.                          Understand that your Daddy isn’t perfect; forgive the flaws in his behavior and don’t repeat them when it’s your turn.

Today, I have four grandchildren and two sons busy at the process of marriage, being devoted husbands and fathers. This is the greatest reward for my endeavor at being a good father, through a vision that was fueled by the absence and disappointment with my father.  From the pain comes the gain. Happy Father’s Day to those out there who deserve it.

Retired airline Captain Brian Settles is a Mercer University Adjunct  faculty member and author of the page turner memoire, No Reason for Dying: A Reluctant Combat Pilot's Confession of Hyporcrisy, Infidelity and War.  www.NoReasonforDying.com

TO FATHERS WHO DESERVE FATHERS' DAY

 ON FATHERING: Nurturing the Gain from Pain

It all started for me in the Lincoln, Nebraska State Orphanage where I was deposited by a seventeen year old unwed mother who surrendered to the pressures not to keep me. The ( my ) biological father was a state champion level high jumper who was drafted into the Army and never knew his girlfriend was with child. He never recovered from the trauma of his mama’s murder at the hands of an irate suitor, never married and lived a wasted life battling alcohol and heroin Joneses.

The greatest blessing of my life was visited upon me being adopted out of that orphanage by Bernice and Howard Settles, who took me back to Muncie, Indiana to grow up.  Daddy was ex-jock who cultivated a lifestyle of womanizing and macho prerogative, a factory laborer lost in the fantasy of becoming a liquor store owner.  Mama sought to live the solid Christian existence pursuing the upward mobility dreams of educated Black Americans emerging from the suffering of the Civil Rights struggle. She held onto a conviction that anyone who put a glass of whiskey to their lips was doomed to a life of rakish and irresponsible behavior.  How two totally opposite souls could have forged a marriage was one of many great mysteries. Their marriage finally cracked under the weight of Daddy’s infidelity and they divorced when I was eight but not before a baby sister had been adopted out of my same Nebraska orphanage.

Mama had a tough time of it after Daddy left home until she got that good job as a librarian at the Muncie Public Library. Through all her struggles to raise us, Daddy never paid child support. Rather than send him to penitentiary, we let him off the hook, all the time my sister and me wondering how he could deny his children the love of financial support.  My love for sports ushered in a bond with Daddy that was dependent on my forgiveness of his abuse of Mama and financial neglect. He never understood who I was, suggesting it was foolish to become an Air Force pilot when there was lots of money to be made lawyering  for the small time dope dealers in Indiana.  His most profound counsel to me about getting trapped in a teen pregnancy: “If you goin’ to be screwing these broads, use a rubber.”  I think I was looking for a bit loftier moral guidance.  Inspired by Daddy’s poor example of Fatherhood, I vowed to myself that I was going to be somebodies’ Daddy when I grew up and try to do it right.

My aviation career was not what I had in mind but I survived two hundred missions flying jet fighters in Vietnam and spent most of my adult life as an airline pilot raising two sons, the greatest joy of this journey.  I loved being a Father and I made a lot of mistakes but I wanted to raise strong, independent sons who would not crack under the first strains of life, sons who would be unstoppable.  I could never have known I would spend most of my fatherhood raising my sons as a single parent father after their mother and I lost our conjugal way.  I wasn’t “The Great Santini” but what follows are some of the philosophies that guided my parenting mission:

1.     Be honest and tell the truth. Stand for Integrity

2.     Know that there are consequences for actions; make sure you are okay with the cost. 

3.     You get lunch money allowance, food, clothing and a roof over your head. If you want the fancy stuff, you do extra chores or neighborhood work to earn extra money for the designer items.

4.     You have responsibilities around the house, ie rooms get cleaned up, floors get mopped and vacuumed, dishes get done and you will learn to cook a few easy meals for yourself.

5.     You will learn how to wash and dry clothes in the machines and fold them up.

6.     Don’t spend all the money you make; learn to have a savings for special needs in the future.

7.     When they were small, I was slow to pick them up when they fell down, or not at all if I knew they were okay, ingraining  in them to pick themselves up and move on.

8.     Stand for possibility and understand that courage, commitment and great effort are required for success in life.  The Life that Is Loved requires work and dedication. Dreams don’t always come true but you still work for them as if it is so.

9.     Accept others for how they present themselves, being careful to remember things aren’t always what they seem.

10.                         Never be abusive to women; learn to be understanding and tolerant.

11.                         Be leery of the appearance of a free lunch.  Don’t seek one.

12.                          Understand that your Daddy isn’t perfect; forgive the flaws in his behavior and don’t repeat them when it’s your turn.

Today, I have four grandchildren and two sons busy at the process of marriage, being devoted husbands and fathers. This is the greatest reward for my endeavor at being a good father, through a vision that was fueled by the absence and disappointment with my father.  From the pain comes the gain. Happy Father’s Day to those out there who deserve it.

Retired airline Captain Brian Settles is a Mercer University Adjunct  faculty member and author of the page turner memoire, No Reason for Dying: A Reluctant Combat Pilot's Cofession of Hypocrisy, Infidelity and War.  www.CaptBrianSettles.com

WHEN PILOTS FALL THROUGH THE CRACKS...

When Pilots Fall
Through the Cracks…

The highly publicized inflight meltdown of Jet Blue Airlines
Captain Clayton Osbon is an experience the passengers on Jet Blue flight 191
will never forget. Media reports and
crew depositions confirm that Capt Osbon appeared to have a psychiatric
breakdown during the flight from Kennedy Airport to Las Vegas. According to the First Officer ( co-pilot ),
the Captain began making incoherent statements on the flight deck at cruise
altitude well into the flight. Flight
attendants testified that the Captain had arrived late for flight check-in and
had missed participating in the pre-flight crew briefing. Inexplicably, during flight, after some
incoherent ranting, Capt Osbon suddenly unstrapped from his flight deck seat
and departed for the cabin area ignoring post -911 FAA operational rules for
keeping the flight deck secure from threatening intrusions.
The First Officer deserves a professional leadership award
for his analysis of the situation and taking the courageous emergency action of
locking Capt Osbon out of the flight deck but having the presence of mind to
have the lead flight attendant to get a dead-heading Jet Blue captain to join
him on the flight deck. That bold and quick thinking action reflected the highest
standards of pilot performance under potentially catastrophic circumstances.
Given the erratic meltdown behavior of Captain Osbon, it is frightening to
speculate on the outcome of their flight had the captain been allowed to
re-enter the cockpit.
Aside from the horrifying engagement by the passengers to
restrain the captain, by-passing FAA regulations mandating that passengers
remain seated with seat belts fastened for all take-offs and landings,
physically restraining the captain on the floor of the forward galley until
arriving at the arrival gate, this incident raises questions about the
viability and adequacy of current medical examinations and pre-employment
screening. This writer is confident that post-incident psychiatric and medical
evaluations will provide answers to what precipitated this near catastrophic
breakdown.
Since the early seventies, great strides have been made to
improve the medical qualification and monitoring of airline pilots. During FAA
physicals, which for captains occur bi-annually, pilots must indicate on flight
physical paperwork whether they have received any DUI’s since the last physical
and whether the citations were alcohol or drug related. The penalty for
falsifying information on an FAA flight physical is pilot certificate
revocation, a serious inducement to honesty on flight physicals. Pre-employment
human resources screening has advanced significantly since the sixties in
weeding out rogue personalities and mediocre pilots. Airline passengers can rest assured that the
pilots on the flight deck of today’s jet liners are well qualified medically
and psychologically. However, the flaw
in the current operating system is its inefficiency to detect and ameliorate
deleterious health and personal issues that arise subsequent to initial
employment that could impact passenger and crew safety.
Pilots tend to be distrustful, even paranoid of the FAA and
airline company programs that are advertised as systemic aides for pilots
experiencing alcohol, emotional or domestic challenges. In the early 1970’s the
Airline Pilots’ Association ( ALPA ) initiated the HIMS program ( Human
Intervention Motivation Study ) to detect and assist airline pilots struggling
with substance abuse issues. The program has assisted over 4,500 pilots in
returning to their careers after successful participation in the HIMS program,
according to the HIMSProgram.com website statistics. Many pilots passed on
participating in HIMS. What we don’t know is how many pilots, out of the
100,000 plus airline pilots flying today, have issues that have gone
undetected. The current commercial aviation system has inadequate mechanisms
for detecting crew member psychological or health deteriorations before they
are manifested in dangerous on the job circumstances, as appears to be the case
with Jet Blue 191.
Many crewmembers battle insalubrious marriages, divorce,
familial, and emotional disintegrations that impact job performance. Few pilots
are going to voluntarily walk into a Chief Pilot’s office and ask to be
grounded until they get their personal lives under control. Most pilots with
alcohol or substance abuse problems would be unlikely to voluntarily draw supervisory
personnel attention to his or her issues. As a pilot, one always wants to
remain “below the radar” of management, never drawing attention to one’s self
and personal life. There was a common
saying among airline pilots that if the Chief Pilot never met you until your
Retirement, you had a successful career.
In the final analysis, the current system of airline crew
management is vulnerable to breakdowns as we witnessed with Jet Blue Captain
Osbon. Given ongoing crew reluctance to seek assistance from airline support
programs, the option of last resorts is for airlines to depend on the
conscientiousness of professional crewmembers to commit the odious act of
reporting crewmembers displaying behavioral patterns on duty that are lacking
in the highest standards of professional conduct. In the traditional
camaraderie that exists among most airline pilot and flight attendant crews,
flight personnel are reluctant to “dime out” their co-workers, but in the
current arena of airline operations, albeit distasteful, reporting questionable
conduct to management is the only option available to preclude pilots falling
through the cracks as was the case with our Jet Blue Captain.
The author, Brian H. Settles, is a retired Boeing 757 Captain
with over 20,000 hours of multi-engine jet flight hours, Mercer Adjunct faculty
member and author of No Reason for Dying: A Reluctant Combat
Pilot’s Confession of Hypocrisy, Infidelity and War.

REQUIEM FOR WHITNEY

Valley of the Dolls Redux- Requiem for Whitney

In witnessing the mystical music tour of Whitney Houston’s going home ceremony, I
was struck by the overflowing pews of show business stars brightly shining in
the New Hope Baptist Church. Some of the most successful entertainers in world showed up to be a part of the last rights for music diva, Whitney Houston, who died mysteriously and tragically in her Beverly Hills hotel bathroom just twenty-four hours before the Grammy Awards
were to commence.

As is customary in the arts, the music and song that were shared with us during
the funeral service elevated our senses to higher emotional levels, heaping greater sadness upon us as we underwent our inexorable shift from who Whitney was for us in recent years to reflection upon the extraordinary vocal talent that she was during her career. We are inspired to reflect on Whitney’s meteoric ascent from teenaged prodigy singing gospel songs at New Hope Baptist in Newark, N.J, to super star protégé of music mogul, Clive Davis.

Juxtaposed to her music and acting fame are the dominant images of a troubled mega-star,
sporadically sinking, drowning in the morass of insecurities, of an unimaginable
unmanageable love relationship with former husband, singer Bobby Brown and a
fantasy existence bogged down in a lifestyle of drug and alcohol addiction. One is left wondering: What Happened to her life? As a child of God, what happened to her?

In pondering these questions as I observed her super star of yesteryear cousin, Dionne
Warwick, tenaciously presiding over the funeral program flow, my mind flashed
back to the moving 1968 cinema hit, “Valley of the Dolls,” in which Dionne sang the theme song for “Valley of the Dolls.” How ironic that forty-four years later that life of fame, stardom and
disconnection from one’s self, about which cousin Dionne sang, seemed the life-imitating-art
world we viewed through the window of Whitney’s real life these past twenty years.

As is the case with too many artists, loaded with unmanageable sensitivity and
artistic talent, the clarity and passion through which they experience life is
often an unbearable burden where exaggerated reactions and substance excesses
become the escape vehicle.

Yes, Sister Whitney may have had a fighter pilot intensity toward living her life as that
humble childhood in Newark metamorphosed into an inexplicable albatross of
insecurity generating from an enigmatic place. Her life in a speedier lane accelerated to a warp mania when she crossed romance paths with Bobby Brown where a mind blowing intimacy overloaded the emotional circuitry, leading deeper into the unreality of show business swirl, fogged in by drugs and alcohol. The bleacher aficionados want to blame Bobby, but he seems merely a willing accomplice, grateful for being invited to share the bed of the exquisite beauty queen that was Whitney, happily disposed to full throttle perpetuation of the daze of confusion.

Paradoxically, the necessary marriage dissolution from Bobby left Whitney in a place where
many of us have not found timely answers- alone and unsupervised. Reeling in blurred vision, caught in an auto-pilot lifestyle of deleterious medicating, Whitney sought familial balm
bonding with her daughter, Booby Kristina, all the while swirling and dancing her way
unaware into to the doom of her own Valley of the Dolls. We pray that rumors of baby Kristina slipping off the edge into her own private maelstrom are not founded.

Wish it were that Whitney’s relationship with God could have secured a livable peace for her.
Sadly, it appears in the final analysis, like the late pop star, Michael Jackson, she could not count on her closest entourage of aides, family and medical support to save her from herself. How could Cousin Dionne have known over forty years ago that she was singing the ironically prophetic lyrics in “Valley of the Dolls” for her “Nippie” Whitney. What we are left to ponder are those final lyrical lines whose answers desert us and leave us blinking tears soaked in the
echoing questions: “Tell me, when will I know, how will I know, when will I know why?”

The author is Brian H. Settles, an Adjunct professor at Mercer University, public speaker,
former airline pilot, Vietnam combat pilot and author of a next generation
combat pilot story that stands on the shoulders of the “RED TAILS”: No
Reason for Dying: A Reluctant Combat Pilot’s Confession of Hypocrisy,
Infidelity and War WWW.BRIANHSETTLES.COM WWW.CAPTBRIANSETTLES.COM