Are Mixed-Gender Cockpit Low-Trust Workplaces?

In Which I Notice Something Interesting About Three Recent Plane Disasters

I like to study plane crashes. Not because I am a sadist, or an anti-DEI crusader, or flying enthusiast.

I do it because I hate flying.

I study crashes because I hope I will find out why it went down so I can take steps to avoid that particular issue on future flights. So far, my crash awareness has taught me to avoid small planes, to avoid flying in snowstorms or through thunder cells, to avoid airlines in Russia and Africa, and even to avoid certain times of day and airplane models.

But with the advent of “diversity” and girl-boss power ideologies swamping all the airlines, my shortcuts and tricks no longer work. ALL airlines these days pledge their allegiance to DEI hiring.

I am not opposed to people other than straight white males who have 30 years of Air Force flying under their belts. I’m sure there are many highly competent female pilots and “pilots of color.”

But in a world of DEI pilot hires, it’s obvious that ANY pilot that checks a diversity box will be fast-tracked beyond their abilities or experience to meet some gender and race quotas, so the airline can brag about it on TikTok.

No one cares who is in the cockpit as long as that person is the absolute best pilot they could find. No one who buys a ticket is going to be excited that United fast-tracked a 25 year old woman into the Captain’s chair over more experienced pilots who were men.

When the LA fires happened, everyone saw the video of one of the Fire Chiefs, a black lesbian, announcing that she wanted more fire fighters who “looked like her.”

No bitch—we want fire fighters and pilots who can 1) put out a fucking fire and 2) land a fucking plane.

That’s literally it.

Noticing Something About the Last 3 Major Crashes

Around six percent of U.S. pilots are women and the numbers are rising. It is perfectly logical that the more women there are flying planes, the more women will be involved in plane crashes.

In all three of the last major U.S. incidents, a woman was in the cockpit of an involved aircraft.

After this latest Delta crash, it occurred to me that the last three major aircraft crashes in the United States featured mixed-gender cockpits.

This is a fascinating data point that no NTSB safety official, airline executive, or any politician will consider or touch with a 50 foot poll.

But as an observer of human behavior, I do wonder if this awkward cockpit dynamic is a potential factor in all three of these crashes.

“Women experience gender harassment and bias in the microculture and report feeling that they must hide their femininity and avoid emotion). They are often exposed to stereotype threat, making them feel as though they must work twice as hard for half the credit.”

Why do pilot interpersonal relationships in a cockpit matter? Because Crew Resource Management issues are often a factor in plane crashes. “Crew resource management or cockpit resource management (CRM) is a set of training procedures for use in environments where human error can have devastating effects. CRM is primarily used for improving aviation safety and focuses on interpersonal communication, leadership, and decision making in aircraft cockpits.”

When good CRM breaks down, accidents happen.

“A number of studies … showed pilot error, as the cause for an aviation accident or incident, was more closely aligned with deficiencies in team communication and collaboration (human-human) than in technical proficiency (human-machine). Multiple studies indicated that approximately 70 to 80 percent of aviation accidents could at least in part be attributed to human error (O’Hare, Wiggins, Batt, & Morrison, 1994; Wiegmann & Shappell, 1997). Earlier research by Tompkins (1991) found that more than 60 percent of the incident reports in the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) reflected communication errors as a causal factor.”

One overlooked aspect of CRM are cultural differences, including gender. “Since CRM involves social interactions at its core, it is very dependent on cultural values. Studies have shown that cultural differences among cockpit crew may strongly affect the basic concepts and fundamentals of CRM.”

If I had to choose the most awkward possible crew combination, it would be a younger woman in a cockpit with older, more experienced male pilots.

And that’s exactly what the happened with the last three American airplane disasters.

Crash #1: Colgan Air, 2009

I always think of “Calgon, take me away!” when I remember this awful crash.

49-year-old Captain Renslow had failed FIVE check tests prior to the crash. The crash happened after he responded incorrectly to a stall warning: instead of pointing the nose down, he kept pulling up on the stick, making the stall worse. Both pilots were fatigued, and the 24-year-old female co-pilot incorrectly pressed the flaps button. It was a shitshow.

But: if the co-pilot had been male, would he have been more empowered to tell the captain he was making a mistake? Would a young woman have felt nervous about speaking up to an older male captain? Was the situation in the cockpit awkward, and did that contribute to both pilots not having situational awareness and an ability to correct each other’s errors?

If you read the cockpit transcript, you will be shocked at how unsterile it is. Normally no non-essential conversation is allowed in the cockpit during takeoffs and landings. But this captain chatted the entire flight to Rebecca, regaling her with old flying stories, giving her pilot career advice, advising her on lifestyle choices, complaining about his own career decisions. To me, it’s obvious that the older man-younger woman dynamic was at play as he talked her ear off, perhaps in an effort to simply make conversation in an awkward, unnatural pairing, or perhaps to impress her, or perhaps because he just felt awkward around a cute young blonde.

In fact, it comes across as such an awkward conversation that it really stands out to me as a root cause. And, based on what I know from the men in my life and my husband’s stories about locker room culture and his time in the military aboard ships, men simply do not have this awkwardness. Two men who have never worked together before can simply treat each other as men have treated each other from time immemorial: a fellow dude. There is no need for small talk; there is already a familiarity and an understanding of things.

Hot-1 is the captain, Hot-2 the first officer.

This can also be the case sometimes in female-only spaces, by the way. There is just an instant understanding of where the other is coming from.

RIP Captain Renslow, First Officer Shaw, and the other 50 deceased people.

Oops.

Crash #2: Black Hawk PAT 25 vs the CRJ from Wichita, 2025

Whoops!

This one happened last month just a few days after I flew in and out of the same airport for the Inauguration.

The Black Hawk flew into the jet seconds before it had landed safely, 300 or so feet above the Potomac. The flight was a training exercise for a young female pilot who was a frequent Biden White House aide and who had scored this plum job at a high-status, elite unit of Black Hawks who were responsible for ferrying VIPS around.

Rebecca Lobach, 28, was being trained by two male pilots, both older than her. Many factors may have played a role, including a potentially faulty altimeter in the Black Hawk, the night vision goggles obscuring their view, and the fact that she had her radio key depressed and therefore missed a crucial piece of ATC direction to “fly behind the CRJ.”

None of the three helicopter pilots saw the CRJ bearing down on them from the left side; they were likely looking at a different nearby plane. But what role did the cockpit dynamic play? Were the men trained to not interfere with a trainee pilot? Was their boss, a female, sensitive to women getting “mansplained” by superior male pilots? Was the environment in the cockpit like walking on eggshells, with the men afraid to be seen as “bossy” to the younger female?

Would that have gotten them in trouble back on base with the butch feminist in charge?

Unclear. Maybe it didn’t matter. But she flew into a plane full of children and their parents, so maybe we have a right to ask these questions.

Crash #3: Delta-Endeavor Air Rollover Crash in Toronto, 2025

Sorry!

Endeavor Air is a wholly owned Delta subsidiary that brags about its all-female “unmanned” flights that feature two female pilots and female cabin crew.

Diversity is important to them, you see. And by diversity, I mean homogeneity with No Men Allowed.

In last week’s crash landing, the plane came down hard and fast and hit an engine, then a wing tore off and the fuselage corkscrewed down the runway, coming to rest on its back. An infant in its mother’s lap was critically wounded, but so far there were no fatalities. Gossip swirled that it was a young inexperienced female first officer who crashed the plane. Next to her was a captain who was not a regular flyer, but a SIM trainer who occasionally had to fly to train less experienced pilots.

In other words, this may have been an ersatz training flight, but they sold tickets to unsuspecting passengers!

As of this writing, this may have been the girl who crashed it:

Kendal Swanson is 26 and only got her commercial license last month.

“Swanson, who was recently certified as an Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) on January 9, 2025, had a relatively brief career in aviation. Rumors circulate that, just a year ago, she was an instructor pilot for small propeller aircraft and had only recently been licensed to co-pilot a small jet before the crash.”

This is information I think I have a right to know BEFORE I board a plane with my children.

As I said, she’s not a bad person, she’s just a shitty pilot. If I flew a plane I would kill myself and everyone on board, so I don’t blame her for her incompetence. Instead, we should also blame the system, the airline, and the idiotic career pipeline that is funneling young women into jobs that require them to handle massive multi-ton vehicles that can go hundreds of miles an hour filled with passengers. Who wants to do this?

You need nerves of steel and an ego that is willing to say, “I blew this landing, I’m going around.” Was she too nervous to admit she’d made a mistake and that’s why she didn’t do a go-around? Did the Captain refuse to take command of the plane because she was a young, blonde female and he had been trained mercilessly to avoid even the perception of “mansplaining” and correcting a woman on the job?

That, of course, is a huge no-no, especially at a girl-boss hive like Endeavor Air.

You need to calm down.

Question: Can CRM Be Negatively Impacted by Mixed-Gender Cockpits?

The NTSB will probably not be allowed to even consider this question. And no, I don’t think all-female crews are the solution. But pilot dynamics should be considered, especially if a “trainer” pilot is overseeing a younger, less experienced female.

Do I want women to be banned from flying? Of course not!

Can women make great pilots? Probably! I mean, if you say so!

And do I only want to fly on planes with Chuck Yeager clones? Obviously.

I am not interested in paying money to be a guinea pig on some newborn flygirl’s first landing. Let her practice flying with a planeload of her girlfriends from the Ladies Who Fly luncheon.

What Women Really Want

Safe flying, everyone!

Thanks for reading,

Peachy