The Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) relies on the mantra “safety is our business, our only business” where, for example, justifying changes in aircraft flight paths over heavily populated residential communities. But is that reality? Not according to the Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation (“OIG”) report of October 23, 2019, Department of Transportation’s Fiscal Year 2020 Top Managerial Challenges (“OIG Report”), when dealing with members of one of FAA’s primary constituencies, the aircraft…

In its report of September 27, 2019 the National Transportation Safety Board (“NTSB”), although acknowledging the need for Boeing to “fine tune” its technology to prevent the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (“MCAS”) from automatically repeating and sending a plane into uncontrolled dives, NTSB focused more on pilots “confusion” in responding to multiple alarms caused by the malfunction in the MCAS system control sensors. NTSB then followed up by issuing seven recommendations calling on the Federal…

During the week of August 19, 2019, both the Appellate and Supreme Courts of California issued decisive opinions clarifying the parameters of agency action subject to environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act, Cal. Pub. Res. Code § 21000, et seq., (“CEQA”). The courts were responding to repeated efforts by public entities to circumvent their CEQA obligations by redefining the actions that constitute a “project” subject to analysis under CEQA. Those public entities which…

On June 21, 2019, the Supreme Court, in a decision by Chief Justice John Roberts, chose to overrule a lower Appellate Court and almost a century of precedent which purportedly required property owners whose property is “taken” by state or local government agencies, either through regulation or physical incursion, to go through local and state legal processes before turning to the federal courts for relief under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Under…

In a June 19, 2019 hearing of the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Aviation, representatives of pilots’ organizations directly involved in, and affected by, the structural issues identified in the Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft, that caused the tragic deaths of 346 passengers, called The Boeing Company (“Boeing”), and its federal regulatory partner, the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) to account in no uncertain terms. Daniel Carey, a 35 year career American Airlines Captain, and…

The concept of “on call” transportation has now moved from the Earth to the sky. As demonstrated recently at a meeting of the players in Washington, D.C., the future of aerial transportation is transitioning toward “flying cars,” i.e., electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) craft that hover and glide relatively quietly and without emissions, summoned by “app,” and without the need for a pilot. To accomplish this purpose, companies including Embraer, Aurora Aircraft, Karem Aircraft,…

In a March 27, 2019 appearance before the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation and Space, Daniel K. Elwell, Acting Administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) sought to clarify the FAA’s role in the certification of the safety of aircraft systems. In doing so, he emphasized that the principal responsibility for safety lies with the aircraft manufacturers, with FAA performing merely a review function to determine “if the applicant [for certification] has shown that the overall…