FAA’s Broken Mental Health Standards And DEI Policies Are Making The Skies Less Safe To Outright Deadly

May 1st, 2025 Leland Freeman

 

With the revelation reported by the New York Times that Army Captain Rebecca Lobach was told to turn left by not only air traffic control 15 seconds before the crash, but also her instructor Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Eaves where she did not alter the flight path, speed or altitude leading to the fatal crash over the Potomac River, there are several points of analysis that Tim Pool brings up. Is it outright incompetence, an unqualified pilot that was only at the controls due to DEI, or did Lobach intentionally disregard ATC and intentionally fly the Blackhawk into the airliner?

Outright incompetence is the least likely scenario since there are several competency checkpoints that have to be crossed even to get approved to get behind the controls in the first place,  Also if that was the case Warrant Officer Eaves would be just a guilty because why didn’t he take the controls when he was voicing his concern about Captain Lobach not turning left which would have put the Blackhawk behind the airline and avoided the fatal collision entirely.

WAS DEI TO BLAME

Then there is DEI which Pool seems to think is the most likely where safety and competency qualification requirements are waived for those that meet DEI criteria which would otherwise be disqualifiers.  One example was with commercial truck drivers where the Obama Administration waived the English Language requirement, something that proved to have fatal consequences.  Subsequently the Trump Administration reversed that executive order.

That is one step of many that needs to be done.  DEI needs to be completely extricated from the Department of Transportation, especially the FAA.  This includes banning the FAA’s use of the Cogscreen which is being used as a DEI-tool to revoke medical certificates and effectively ground pilots and air traffic controllers that don’t fit the DEI criteria.  ADHD has been made into the boogieman/scapegoat because its mainly (over) diagnosed in Caucasian heterosexual biological males that are anything but DEI even though the accident rate over a 15 year period published by the NTSB in the NIH is 0.18% which is practically non-existent and some of the safest pilots statistically. Prominent Senior HIMS AME Dr. Brent Blue at the December 2023 NTSB Safety Summit regarding FAA Cognitive profiling has gone as has as to state that young males being over diagnosed with ADHD as a childhood disease du jour” with more evidence coming out every day that ADHD isn’t even a real “mental disorder” and that past theories cannot be repeated using the scientific method to have been outright disproven such as the false claim there are genetic markers for ADHD.  It seems that ADHD has just become a convenient segregation label for DEI purposes, especially with psychology’s bias again men and conservatives.

COGNATIVE PROFILING WOULD NOT HAVE PREVENTED THIS CRASH

Its should be pointed out even though Captain Rebecca Lobach had a commercial pilot rating from the FAA that was converted from her military ratings, she did not possess a FAA Medical Certificate according to the airman registry which is necessary to exercise the FAA pilot rating privileges if she was flying as a “civilian.” Captain Lobach was however flying a military aircraft under a military training mission which the FAA’s medical process has no jurisdiction over.  Most pilots and those that not financially benefitting from the FAA holding pilots hostage to the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause violating FAA Medical Industrial Complex view this as a good thing since the military has more modern medical standards that is much more efficient and more effective at determining that is a pilots is actually medically airworthy or not.  In fact Dr. Blue has stated that if modern medicine can’t determine is someone will suffer sudden incapacitation, then why does the FAA feel that could do a better job at it.  People Magazine happened to report that the pilots were not in medical distress at the time of the crash meaning this crash was not caused by sudden incapacitation.

Dr. Blue has gone on record calling the FAA Cognitive Process draconian and inappropriate and that the FAA should not force pilots to see their hand picked psychologists who have a financial interest in subjectively grading the tests as fails to hold pilots hostage to them.

Its not the “mental issue” directly that is causing aviation accidents but the FAA’s stance of even a diagnosis let alone treating the issue so that it doesn’t grow into a problem is a groundable offence, leading to some plots feeling there is no way out.   In fact this was brought up at the December 2023 NTSB Safety Summit where pilots feeing they would lose their FAA Medicals permanently if they sought help for mental issues due to draconian regulations.

They knew the Cogscreen and other tests were was rigged to fail the pilot and with some cases those student pilots felt the only way out was to un-alive themselves in an aircraft. 

While the FAA would argue these barriers were “just perceived” in reality they were not.  Especially since the FAA like other government agencies have a notorious reputation for being punitive.  An example cited during the NTSB Safety Summit  An air traffic controller taking medications was being investigated by DOT IG who refused to state if it was a criminal or administrative investigation.  It was recommended she hired a criminal attorney, and that night she took her life.  Next Day DOT IG then claimed it as only an administrative investigation.  What’s even worse before Chevron Deference was overturned, these cases would be tried in the agency’s administrative court in the Executive Branch, not a traditional court in the Judicial Branch.

What is even more damning is that Dr. Blue also stated that the subjectively graded Cogscreen has not prevented or stopped any accident.  and that more discretion should be given to the AME’s themselves with regards to issuing medicals.

The fact that these cognitive tests are used outside of their design scope and don’t have the data to back up their claims on top of the tests are subjectively graded based on opinion, not data is outright malpractice by the FAA which also violates that 14th Amendment equal protection clause since those within FAA Medical are forcing some but not all pilots to take these subjectively graded tests that are more or less rigged.

When outgoing NTSB Vice Chair Bruce Landsbergs asks about the validity of the any of these FAA Cognitive tests including the Cogscreen, The representative the FAA sent to the Conference, Dr. Penny Giovanetti  stated that the FAA views the test is “valid” because the test developer, Dr. Gary Kay PhD worked with the Russians to “validate” the Cogscreen test in 1987.  This meant the Soviet Russians and it’s felt by many that the USSR used the Cogscreen to revoke as many medical certificates to collapse the United States Airspace System at the climax of the cold war.

Landsberg states the line needs to be drawn at punitive action.  Landsberg says the FAA lied about not having this problem from all the stories told at the Safety Summit.  He does not care to gamble his certificates or livelyhood with the FAA stating sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t BTW its going to cost you $10 to 20k and 3 years of your life.  Landsberg emphasizes the FAA needs to partner in this in a non-punitive way.  To put it bluntly, the current cognitive profiling used by the FAA is not preventing crashes or making the skies safer, in fact its creating a toxic environment that is making the skies less safe that will lead to more inflight incidents and crashes, not less.   

DID CAPTIAN LOBACH INTENTIONALLY FLY THE HELICOPTER INTO THE AIRLINER

This brings up the third theory, was the crash intentional?  Those defending Cognitive profiling as a way to detect mental deficiencies that would prevent someone from safely flying an aircraft or even following basic directions only have one argument, that Captain Lobach was not mentally deficient to fly the an aircraft and had to have crashed into the airliner intentionally. That argument however does not work either because the FAA same hand picked mental quacks that claim these tests detect cognitive deficiencies can also detect depression and deliberate intent, essentially arguing that this draconian cognitive profiling can prevent another German Wings Flight 9525, where a pilot barricaded himself in the cockpit and intentionally crashed an airliner full of passengers into the Alps killing everyone on board.   Clearly it did not.

 

Captain Lobach not only had to be examined by the Military to even be commissioned, let alone be qualified to fly, she separately was screened by the White House since she worked as an aide in the White House to the Biden-Harris Administration in order to be granted security clearance.  Many have speculated online that the delay of releasing Lobach’s name was to allow time for her social media profiles to be scrubbed and to hide the shortcomings of cognitive assessments which failed to detect mental deficiency and/or evil intent.   Some have speculated that Captain Lobach was suffering “Trump Derangement Syndrome” or that she felt that not being able to qualify for an FAA Medical would prevent her from flying once she left the Military.  Or there was a pending investigation that would have lead to a criminal case against Captain Lobach regarding dealing with a federal agency. Once again this is speculation however pilots have lost their medical certificates for something as minor as marriage counseling.  

Doubling down on Cognitive assessments will only make the skies less same because it will outright discourage pilots from seeking mental health help like what happened with Joseph Emerson nearly crashed Alaska Airlines Flight 2059 due the FAA’s draconian cognitive profiling and loss of medical he would to have to endured if he sought help for his depression.  Especially since much of the assessments used by forensic psychologists are in fact junk science and will lead to nothing more than safe and competent pilots being wrong grounded due to false positives.  In fact the FAA published  the reason why it doesn’t use updated versions of psychological tests, because the newer tests fail less people because those fails were false positives.  The FAA also published then deleted information regarding neurodiversity being a “superpower” regarding avation safety piloting drones, contradicting the agencies medical divisions policy of cognitive profiling.

REFORMS OF FAA MEDICAL ARE NEEDED

The reforms that need to happen with FAA Medical are fairly straight forward but are not implemented because getting rid of the red tape has made too much sense to the Executive Branch before the times of DOGE.  With regards to any cognitive deficiencies, the flight training process and checkrides to obtain pilot ratings have numerous checkpoints pilots have to pass in order to preceded with the next rating.  airline pilots have to take a minimum of four checkrides and have logged at least 1,500 hours to become first officers, and both numbers are usually more than that.  Before each checkride the pilot has to be signed off by their flight instructor and the checkride is administered by a separate designated pilot examiner.  This determines actual ability of a pilot to make sound judgment in the cockpit and safe aeronautical decision making in an objective manner.  Cognitive tests accomplish none of those objectives.  President Donald Trump appointing Dr. Brent Blue as the next Federal Air Surgeon for the FAA will be massive step towards these reforms as well.

As for determining if someone has evil intent.  The issue is it’s often hard to determine that, especially since those that intend to commit harm often come across as more normal than normal people because they know how to hide their true intentions.  How do you think many politicians get elected.  Anyway you shape it, cognitive assessments did not prevent this crash and would not prevent future crashes and would only ground safe and competent pilots due to their subjective nature.  The FAA’s policy of grounding pilots and air traffic controllers, often for years over these subjective and disproven pseudo science if forcing pilots to hide their issues until it becomes a boiling point.  This will lead to there won’t be any pilots, but is that the real intention?

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