Gregory Polek has spent his entire career in aviation journalism with AIN, starting as a proofreader and assistant to then-managing editor Mary Mahoney in 1995 after serving an internship with&nbsp;New Jersey Monthly&nbsp;magazine and completing his B.A. degree in English/Writing at New Jersey’s William Paterson College. By 1997 Polek accepted a position as an associate editor, covering the regional airline beat for&nbsp;Aviation International News&nbsp;in place of retiring industry veteran Don Anderson. The assignment took Polek across North America and Europe to profile regional airlines varying in size and mission from the likes of floatplane operators Kenmore Air and Chalk’s Ocean Airways to regional jet operators such as SkyWest and American Eagle. Today, in his dual role as Air Transport Editor and International Airshow Editor, Polek writes, edits, and manages AIN’s commercial aviation content while overseeing each of the company’s daily international air show publications in Paris, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai. Most recently Polek has assumed oversight of daily coverage of the Helicopter Association International’s annual Heli-Expo convention.

Senior Editor

Gregory Polek

American Eagle had to ground nine Embraer ERJ regional jets at Chicago O’Hare Airport on August 19 after a TSA officer used the airplanes’ total air temperature (TAT) probes to hoist himself onto jet bridges to perform routine security checks. According to an American Eagle spokesperson, at around 5:30 a.m. one of the airline’s maintenance workers witnessed the inspector trying to climb onto a jet bridge with the help of a TAT probe; upon questioning by the Eagle employee, the TSA agent admitted to using the TAT probes as handholds on eight other airplanes while attempting to check that their doors were locked. Although subsequent inspections found no damage to the probes, the incident forced American Eagle to delay 40 flights while it spent as much as two hours checking each airplane, the last of which went back into service at 10:45 a.m. The TSA said it will retrain its inspectors to avoid similar incidents in the future.

TSA Blunder Forces Eagle To Ground Embraers

American Eagle had to ground nine Embraer ERJ regional jets at Chicago O’Hare Airport on August 19 after a TSA officer used the airplanes’ total air temper

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