One of the things we talk about in the Current Topics in Aviation course I co-teach at Vaughn College of Aeronautics is how to report safety issues without being labeled a whistleblower or, worse, being fired. It’s an important issue for anyone entering a field where safety is so important and the “penalties” for being labeled a whistleblower can be high. Even the federal Whistleblower Protection Act covers only a small segment of the industry: airlines and their contractors. Some states might also have some protections for workers. But they all involve complicated and expensive legal processes to prove retaliation for whistleblowing and to recover damages. It can take years and years. So, while in some cases whistleblowing is the only way to stop an unsafe practice (and I do admire those individuals who put their jobs at risk to report safety problems), the best approach whenever possible is to find a way to raise safety issues–and get them acted upon–without being labeled a troublemaker or whistleblower.

 In our course, we usually begin the conversation about how to raise safety issues “safely” after watching the excellent PBS documentary Flying Cheap, which grew from the crash of Continental Flight 3407, a commuter codeshare flight operated by Colgan Air. The Feb. 12, 2009 crash killed all 49 people on board and one person on the ground when the aircraft stalled and dived into a neighborhood just outside Buffalo, N.Y. In addition to analyzing in depth a number of safety problems with the airline that might have alerted the FAA and Colgan management to the problems that ultimately led to the crash, the documentary highlights whistleblowers at both Colgan and the FAA and the way they were treated by their respective employers. To put it simply: not well. 

Many people I’ve spoken with about the documentary have speculated about how things might have been different for that ill-fated flight if the FAA and Colgan had listened to their whistleblowing employees. But no one I’ve met has ever said, “I’d like to be in their shoes.” Being a whistleblower is not for the faint of heart.

In the case of Colgan, the airline fired a copilot who blew the whistle on a captain who falsified a load manifest (not the captain of the doomed flight). After Colgan fired him for reporting the falsification to them, the copilot reported it to the FAA, which issued an emergency order revoking that captain’s ATP. The load manifest for the flight in question had been changed to make it appear that an overweight flight was actually within weight-and-balance limits so that an additional passenger could be carried on the flight.

Not only did Colgan retain the pilot who falsified the load manifest but its director of operations actually testified on his behalf at the NTSB hearing after he appealed the FAA’s revocation of his ATP. Yes, you read that correctly: the company fired the copilot who reported the illegal and unsafe doctoring of a load manifest and supported the pilot who did the pencil-whipping when the FAA took action to revoke his certificate. The NTSB affirmed the pilot’s license revocation.

As for the FAA inspector who reported numerous problems with Colgan’s operations before the Feb. 12, 2009 crash, the documentary indicates that his attempts at raising safety issues with the FAA were met with such resistance that he was eventually taken off the certificate and, while not fired, was clearly made to pay for his whistleblowing.

Proper Approach Is Key

So, the question for my students entering the aviation field–and for anyone working today–is how do you raise safety problems effectively without putting your careers at risk? As I was getting ready for the start of a new semester at Vaughn, I came upon an article written by Cheryl Connor, in Forbes, titled “Risky Business: How to Blow the Whistle (and still Protect Your Job)” in which she quotes extensively from integrity expert Dr. David Gruder.

Gruder has seen “whistleblowing blow up for the informer despite the best of intentions simply because the whistleblower didn’t know how to handle the process well. But there are ways to minimize the risk that whistleblowing will backfire.” He recommends six steps to consider–all of which are important–but I found two to be particularly significant in reporting aviation safety issues. These are reporting the information to the right person and escalating the matter properly if it isn’t addressed. His example starts with the offending party and goes up the chain through the person’s supervisor. In my experience, it’s important to start whenever possible with the offending party and, if he or she doesn’t respond appropriately, carefully evaluate who in your organization you should go to next. (In some cases it might be appropriate to take advantage of anonymous reporting processes at your company or to use the FAA’s safety hotline.)

The second critical point Gruder makes is how to report the information so it has the greatest chance of being acted upon favorably. His three points here are: assume the violator’s good intentions unless you have overwhelming evidence otherwise, if for no other reason than that it will diffuse some of the “stress and emotion that is invariably involved”; be non-emotional and  “assess the disclosure data in a dispassionate way for the issue’s impact, prices for not addressing and all the risks of addressing.” (He warns against adopting a “self-righteous attitude,” which he says will “virtually guarantee the experience will go badly”) and, last, “non-emotionally illuminate for them the harm that will happen to the company if the issue continues.” 

It might not be possible in every instance to avoid the repercussions the two whistleblowers in Flying Cheap were subjected to in trying to raise alarms about Colgan’s safety problems, but Dr. Gruder’s suggestions are worth considering.