Abel Castillo worked his way up to 1500 hours as a CFI and was hired by a regional airline, rising to the position of Captain on a Regional Jet. His goal was to advance to a legacy airline, and he had just been hired by another, better-paying, regional airline. He had completed all pre-employment documentation and was given a five-day window to complete his pre-employment drug screening. He showed up for the drug screening on his way to catch a flight home to see his daughter. Unfortunately, he could not produce the required volume of urine required for the test. He drank more water and tried again, but again came up short. He advised the testing facility that he needed to catch a flight and would return in a few days during the drug test window. The facility reported that he had "refused" the test, and his nightmare began. The FAA immediately revoked all of his flight certificates and he was terminated from his airline job. He must now wait up to two years before attempting to regain his certificates by taking written and practical tests for Private Pilot, Commercial Pilot, Instrument, Multi-engine and Airline Transport Pilot certificates. He gets to keep his flight hours. Abel hopes that sharing his experience can help other pilots avoid this experience.

RFT 584: The Cautionary Tale of Abel Castillo

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Andrew Ross is a pilot at a major airline flying the Boeing 787 domestically and internationally.  Andrew has served as a union representative, committee chairman, and is a member of the National Education Steering Committee for the ALPA.  He has also served as an airline check airman and is a Gold-Seal Flight Instructor.  Andrew is also a member of the National Intercollegiate Flying Association (NIFA) Board of Directors, furthering collegiate aviation education through competition all over the US.  Andrew holds his masters degree in organizational leadership with a focus in non-profit management and executive coaching and counseling from Lewis University.  He currently runs his own coaching and consulting firm.  He is also a published author.

RFT 606: 787 Pilot/NIFA Mentor Andrew Ross

Cesar "Rico" Rodriguez's first operational assignment was flying the  Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II at Suwon Air Base, South Korea; in 1985 he was selected to attend the Instructor Pilot Course at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas then spent the following three years as an AT-38 Instructor Pilot at Holloman AFB, New Mexico; in 1988 he transitioned to the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle and was assigned to the 33d Tactical Fighter Wing at Eglin AFB, Florida. Rodriguez flew missions in support of the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 and following service in Operation Desert Storm served on the staff of 9th Air Force at Shaw AFB, South Carolina then attended Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Alabama. Beginning in 1995 he was Chief of Force Requirements and Executive Officer to the Commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe at Ramstein Air Base, Germany then returned to operational flying as a pilot and Chief of Safety with the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath, UK; he next served as Assistant Chief of Safety at Air Combat Command Headquarters at Langley AFB, Virginia and then attended the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. In 2002 he was assigned as Deputy Commander of the 366th Operations Group at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho and also deployed to Kuwait in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom serving as Operations Group Commander for the 332d Air Expeditionary Wing, the largest flying unit in Central Command. His final assignment was as Commander of the 355th Mission Support Group at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona; he retired in November, 2006. His numerous awards include the Legion of Merit, three Distinguished Flying Crosses and the Air Medal with 11 oak leaf clusters.

RFT 605: Triple MiG-Killer Rico Rodriguez

On the afternoon of May 11, 1996, Valet Flight 592 pushed back from gate G2 in Miami after a delay of 1 hour and 4 minutes due to mechanical problems.There were 110 people on board: 105 passengers, mainly from Florida and Georgia, and a crew of two pilots and three flight attendants. At 2:04 PM EDT, the DC-9 took off from runway 9L (now runway 8R) and began a normal climb. At 2:10 p.m the passengers started to smell smoke. At the same time, the pilots heard a loud bang in their headsets and noticed the plane was losing electrical power. The sag in electrical power and the bang were eventually determined to be the result of a tire in the cargo hold exploding. Seconds later, a flight attendant entered the cockpit and informed the flight crew of a fire in the passenger cabin. Passengers' shouts of "fire, fire, fire" were recorded on the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) when the cockpit door was opened. Though ValuJet's flight attendant training manual stated that the cockpit door should not be opened when smoke or other harmful gases might be present in the cabin, the intercom was not functional and informing the pilots of what was happening was difficult. The flight data recorder (FDR) indicated a progressive failure of the DC-9's electrical and flight control systems due to the spreading fire. Kubeck and Hazen immediately asked air traffic control for a return to Miami due to the increasing smoke in the cockpit and cabin, and were given instructions for a return to the airport. One minute later, Hazen requested the nearest available airport. Kubeck began to turn the plane left in preparation for the return to Miami. Flight 592 disappeared from radar at 2:13:42 PM, the exact time that it crashed. Eyewitnesses nearby watched as the plane banked sharply, rolled onto its side and nosedived into the Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area in the Everglades, a few miles west of Miami, at a speed in excess of 507 miles per hour (441 kn; 816 km/h). Kubeck lost control of the plane less than 10 seconds before impact. Examination of debris suggested that the fire had burned through the floorboards in the cabin, resulting in structural failure and damage to cables underneath the instrument panels. The NTSB report on the accident stated, "the Safety Board cannot rule out the possibility that the flightcrew was incapacitated by smoke or heat in the cockpit during the last 7 seconds of the flight."   At the end of a fifteen-month investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the fire that downed Flight 592 developed in a cargo compartment below the passenger cabin. The cargo compartment was a Class D design, in which fire suppression is accomplished by sealing off the hold from outside air. Any fire in such an airtight compartment would quickly exhaust all available oxidizers and then burn itself out. As the fire suppression can be accomplished without any intervention by the crew, such holds are not equipped with smoke detectors. However, the NTSB quickly determined that just before takeoff, 144 expired chemical oxygen generators, each slightly larger than the size of a tennis ball can, had been placed in the cargo compartment in five boxes marked COMAT (company material) by ValuJet's maintenance contractor, SabreTech, in violation of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations forbidding the transport of hazardous materials in passenger aircraft cargo holds.[a] Failure to cover the generators' firing pins with the prescribed plastic caps made an accidental activation much more likely. The investigation revealed that rather than covering them, the cords attached to the firing pins were simply cut or duct-taped around the cans, and Scotch tape was also used to stick the ends down. SabreTech employees indicated on the cargo manifest that the "oxy canisters", which were loosely packed in the boxes that were each sealed with tape and bubble wrap, were "empty". ValuJet workers then loaded the boxes in the cargo hold in the mistaken belief that the devices that they contained were just empty canisters, thus being certified as supposedly "safe" to transport on a passenger aircraft, when in fact they were neither simple oxygen canisters, nor empty. Chemical oxygen generators, when activated, produce oxygen for passengers if the plane suffers a decompression. However, they also produce a great quantity of heat due to the exothermic nature of the chemical reaction involved. Therefore, not only could the heat and generated oxygen start a fire, but the oxygen could also keep the fire burning. The fire was worsened by the presence of two main aircraft tires (one of them mounted on a main wheel) and a nose tire and wheel that were also included in the list of materials shipped as COMAT. Investigators determined that one of the oxygen generators was likely triggered when the plane experienced a slight jolt while taxiing. As the aircraft taxied and took off, the generator began accumulating heat, soon setting fire to its surroundings. Laboratory testing showed that canisters of the same type could heat nearby materials up to 500 °F (260 °C). The oxygen from the generators fed the resulting fire in the cargo hold without any need for outside air, defeating the cargo hold's airtight design. A pop and jolt heard on the cockpit voice recording and correlated with a brief and dramatic spike in the altimeter reading in the flight data recording were attributed to the sudden cabin pressure change caused by one of the wheels in the cargo hold exploding due to the heat. Investigators also determined that in this process, the fire began to destroy control cables that ran to the back of the aircraft, which explained why the pilots began losing control before the plane crashed; the NTSB concluded that the aircraft was under positive control by the pilots until the time of the sharp right turn and dive immediately prior to impact. Smoke detectors in the cargo holds can alert the flight crew of a fire long before the problem becomes apparent in the cabin, and a fire suppression system buys valuable time to land the plane safely. In February 1998, the FAA issued revised standards requiring all Class D cargo holds to be converted by early 2001 to Class C or E; these types of holds have additional fire detection and suppression equipment.

RFT 604: Airliner Cargo Fire Systems

Watching Top Gun Scott Kartvedt watched Top Gun in 1986 just like many other young men but then went on to be a Navy pilot, something many of us just dreamed of. He applied to and was selected to the elite Blue Angels air demonstration team where he served as the number seven, six, and number five solo pilot before returning to the fleet. There, he served during five combat deployments flying 91 combat missions and accumulating over 6,300 flight hours, 658 carrier arrested landings on eleven aircraft carriers.   Led to a Navy Career Throughout his career, he faced near-death experiences, lost men and women he served with, and led squadrons through battle, all while developing a culture of excellence everywhere he went.   He went on to command VFA-83, an award-winning FA/18 Squadron, and served as the Navy’s first commanding officer of the only F-35C Stealth Strike Fighter Squadron in the US before retiring from the Navy and returning to civilian life.   Going Full Throttle into Civilian Life After that, he began his second career as a professional pilot. He became an inspirational speaker and instructor and served and still serves on the Board of Directors for the Blue Angels Foundation. Scott also joined the Patriot Jet Team, the only civilian jet demonstration team in North America, as their number 5 pilot.   And Onto the Big Screen Through that position, he had the opportunity to train some of the actors and fly as a stunt pilot in the new Top Gun Maverick movie, bringing his journey full circle.   You'll laugh, you'll learn, you'll cry, and you'll soar at full throttle through Scott's story of a life lived at high-G, and you won't want to stop reading until you get to the final page.

RFT 603: Stunt Pilot Scott Kartvedt

Dan Verdoorn started his flying as a young child, riding his bicycle to the local airport and watching airplanes take off and land from outside the fence. Finally, a pilot in a J-3 Cub asked him if he wanted to go for a flight, and that was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with aviation. Dan worked his way up in the construction business and is now the owner of Celebrity Custom Homes in Lone Tree, Colorado. But building homes isn't his only handiwork: he has built several aircraft, and has owned even more! Dan definitely has earned the title of Home Builder!

RFT 584: The Cautionary Tale of Abel Castillo

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