FAA vs Aviators Battle in San Antonio - FSDO Fires DPE - TakingOff Ep 116

the battle cry in san antonio was remember the alamo but now a new fight is brewing between the texians and the government and it's become remember the dpe now on taking off hi i'm dan milliken and today's aviation news is about the termination of a popular dpe from the faa san antonio flight standards district office or fisdo as always on these rants at the end i will put some things out there that can make us better pilots and better people okay what in the world is a dpe or a designated pilot examiner for you non-pilots out there a dpe is an examiner who passes or fails you for your different pilot certificates so when it comes time to get that certificate you schedule a check ride with a dpe or someone from the faa in the united states the faa is the designated entity that regulates and controls the airspace over our country they decide who gets a certificate and who doesn't in the old days when it was time to go for your check ride to get your certificate you would schedule a flight with an examiner from the faa and this created a backlog so the faa created a program where they would designate certain upstanding and knowledgeable instructors to be able to pass or fail pilots so these designated examiners are not employees of the faa and they can lose their designation without cost and the faa has regional offices all over the country to help facilitate all this in the aviation community we call these offices the fizdo the flight standards district office at each visto you have a manager who is in charge of that whole office reporting directly to the manager is a managing specialist of dpes in the san antonio fisdo right now there are 11 designated pilot examiners and one managing specialist in other fistos you might have more than one managing specialist and a different number of dpes and i know many managing specialists actually have a lot of other duties inside the fizdo as well an individual is appointed to be a dpe by the managing specialist and serves at the whim and pleasure of that specialist if a managing specialist doesn't like the colored shirt the dpe is wearing he can terminate the airmen from the program if the managing specialist wants a buddy to be a dpe he can terminate one for no reason to make room that's the way the system exists right now and that's the quick rundown on the fsdo dpe program okay let's talk about a fight brewing in central texas between the aviation community and the local fisdo in this battle i don't know either side i've never met or talked to the guys at the fizdo office in san antonio and i've never met or talked to the terminated dpe before this event i don't have a dog in the hunt i do know some of the supporting players but we're going to be talking about two different sides that are now in a battle especially as lawyers are getting involved i want to make sure everyone understands i'm not against the faa where at all possible i've tried to get an objective story from each side i have friends at the faa certainly brian turner does the actions of one or two people in the faa of course do not represent the entity as a whole there are plenty of good people in the faa okay so here's the two sides drawn for battle on one side you have the san antonio fisdo specifically the managing specialist mr christian morales and his boss fisdo manager michael carroll both mr morales and mr carroll have been in their positions for a relatively short time like a year to 14 months or so on the other side you have ken wiedekin an extremely accomplished pilot instructor and now former dpe he's well liked and by all reports a great instructor and a fair examiner the supporting characters in this story include all-american aviation and jeremy walters who facilitated a virtual safety program inside the faa wings program there's trace clinton who was the main speaker at that virtual program and ryan newman a san antonio fisdo employee also attending the virtual conference i'll put links and stuff for the virtual conference right down there in the description ryan's job at the fizdo is the fast program manager that's the safety initiative program that works with people like jeremy to get seminars and info out there on safety it's important to note as a testament to the character of ken the central texas aviation community has rallied heavily around kin more on that later in the meantime if you have a ken whedokin story post it for me in the comments below i'd love to read it so what happened imagine that you've become a designated examiner for the faa you still have your own life as an instructor or something else airline pilot an aviation related business you get invited to sit in the audience of a safety meeting that is paneled by a couple people that you happen to know and like so you go and you sit in the audience they laugh they joke and toward the end of it they tell stories including one story about you remember you're in the audience can you just stand up and interrupt the panel and tell them the faa frowns upon such activity you could but maybe it's not really the time or place so basically in a virtual setting that's what happened to ken he was attending a safety seminar on flying low at the end the presenter trace clinton recounted a story of skiing that's taking a plane over water and just letting the tires barely touch skiing with ken's plane and without ken knowing it here's the clip courtesy of all american aviation and jeremy walters jason giles have you cub skied before and i got a great story with this one since ken's online uh yeah so me and another pilot i won't disclose uh we we did we ran the ken's airplane tires on the water and when we got back i told ken i said you know hey we went and skied the tires it was awesome and he goes you know how you do that right and i always say you know he has a mustache and he has some gray hair to give him experience and i was thinking i was going to get more insight on how to do this safely and fun and he goes in someone else's airplane and so from then on no more skiing so when ken was terminated he was told by managing specialist christian morales that the reason for his termination was because he didn't stand up and renounce this practice the second reason he was given for termination was that earlier in the program he took a sip from a glass it looks like it possibly had wine in it this is what was reported to ken as the cause for termination i've reached out to the faa specifically mr morales for clarification validation as of this filming i've not heard back from mr morales the faa's public affairs liaison len lunsford told me this morning that it's being looked into that's the extent of what i've been able to find out from the faa side okay the timeline for this whole thing went down like this in june one evening they had a fast safety seminar in early september while out on a check ride for a cfi candidate ken's access to the the dpe management system was pulled and he got an email from mr morales right at that time that his dpe credentials were suspended pending an investigation according to ken mr morales informed ken he was not the target of the investigation and that the investigation was being done outside of the physio office ken asked what was this about and was informed by mr morales that it had to do with the video at a fast safety event he was not told really anything else a couple of weeks went by and ken reached back out to them and was told by mr morales that the investigation was still going on and that again he wasn't the target more weeks went by and finally at the beginning of november the fizdo sent a notice of termination through the dpe management software system to ken he was no longer a dpe we do not know who was the actual target of the investigation ryan newman the fast program director and a real employee of the faa was in attendance as well and is still working at the faa we don't know if he received any discipline from mr morales or mr carroll and to be clear on the face of the evidence presented i don't believe there's any reason for any discipline here okay last month i had a video which i talked about the reasonable person test that is most of us are reasonable people when an individual acts in an unreasonable manner there's usually something in their mind that makes that action reasonable so that's my question here because on the face of it pending some information that we haven't gotten from the faa it appears to be fairly unreasonable course of action so what was it that made it reasonable in mr morales and mr carroll's mind to terminate ken over something like this i've asked the faa but no answer yet and i'll share it with you when the answer comes if the answer comes we know mr morales is well within his rights to take the action he did but that doesn't mean it's right to do that thing and there could be other reasons that they that aren't stated like maybe ken mucked up the dms software system causing the fizdo a lot of work or something like that that we don't know about of course if there's any other reason i hope they communicate what it is because otherwise we only have the two points that they told ken to go on that he didn't speak up as an audience member on the dangers of skiing an airplane and drinking from a glass okay the aviation community has rallied around ken on the face of an extremely unfair termination and a dp system that is arbitrary and capricious pilots and aviation people are asking and demanding some changes they've created a facebook group called pilots for kin and among their stated goals are to get ken reinstated and a bill of rights like the pilot bill of rights for dpes they've been gathering a lot of signatures for a petition for ken's reinstatement but it's an extremely hard battle the fizdo in this situation is like a castle with a moat and no way in and again they were well within their rights to take the action they did even if their rights aren't right so it may come down to everyone just reaching out to their legislators and try to get some movement on the faa about this issue while the primary effort from ken in the aviation community is to get ken reinstated which is an extremely rare occurrence ken has a second goal he'd like to see out of this whole thing and that is an accountability system to be put in place for the dpe management and right now there is no accountability if a managing specialist at the fizdo wants to give his buddy a nice job the managing specialist can simply fire a dpe creating a vacancy that he could then fill with his buddy yes it's cronyism but it's totally allowable and unchecked right now in the current system so again maybe it's time to reach out to the legislators one key byproduct of this action by mr morales is how it will affect aviation safety there are programs all over the country focused and dedicated on safety dpes and other people in official positions offer some of the best wisdom on aviation safety now i fear they'll be reluctant to risk their careers to help out the aviation community youtube facebook social media it's a great place to promote safe flying and now that's in jeopardy you know here's my takeaway which might be a little different it's never too late to do the right thing to make the right choice there have been times that i've headed down the wrong trail sometimes years down that road this can serve as a personal reminder to myself and maybe you it's not too late to make the right call when you're flying and you've made a series of bad decisions stop take a breath and make the right call in your relationship with your spouse maybe you've been heading down that wrong road it's not too late to stop and make the right call no matter how hard now of course many times to make the right call requires humility i was directing a tv show last year and we were on location in another city and it was hard keeping the cast focused and together i was ready to roll on a couple of the actors and they were nowhere to be found eventually they came sauntering up and i was livid i pulled the two of them aside and just lit into them for going off without permission and then one of them simply told me that i had earlier said that the actors could go grab footage and that they could take a cameraman with them and that's what they did they were shooting some shenanigans for the show at that moment i could try to save face and defend my anger and tell them well don't do it again blah blah blah but why say face i was 100 totally wrong for yelling at them and i immediately reversed course and apologize and told them i was totally wrong for getting in their face i was ashamed i was humiliated it was well within my rights as the tv director to just tell them to sit down and shut up but it wasn't the right thing to do maybe we need less cling to rights and more clinging to the right choice so i asked the san antonio fisto specifically mr morales you have every right in the current system to terminate any dpe without any cause but sometimes just because you can do it doesn't make it the right thing we see that when we're flying as pilots barring information i don't have for a justifiable reason for your action it's not too late to do the right thing for ken for the aviation community for the safety programs that will be hurt do the right thing and you others out there whatever it is in your life right now you can do the right thing and remember superior judgment trump's superior skills stay safe

Channel: Taking Off

Views: 30,410

Keywords: ken wittekiend, DPE, designated pilot examiner, FAA, FSDO, FSDO fires DPE, aviation, aviation news, flying, inthehangar, in the hangar, takingoff, taking off, dan millican, jeremy walters, all american aviation, pilots for ken, flying news, airplanes, learn to fly, tres clinton, christian morales, michael carroll, managing supervisor, fsdo manager, whats a dpe

Id: -tTmapA7Yjg

Length: 15min 39sec (939 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 07 2020