Pete Hegseth’s Reckless Message to Helicopter Pilots - The Atlantic

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This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here.<br>Three times in recent months, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has absolved military aviators caught on camera busting flight regulations. The message to pilots is clear: As long as what you do looks cool and puts on a show for the public, you can break flight rules without consequences.<br>Just Friday, a member of the Blue Angels, the Navy’s flight-demonstration team, buzzed Pensacola Beach at extremely low altitude and a high angle of bank, close to throngs of spectators. Captain Adam Bryan, the Blue Angels’ team leader, conceded on camera that the aviator in the video had put himself and the crowd in an unsafe situation. The aviator admitted that he’d miscalculated a turn. He was apparently taken off the flight schedule.

Hegseth, however, posted on X before the facts had come in that “the flyovers will continue ​until morale improves.” His statement seemingly implied that even if the stunt was intentional, all was forgiven because it looked awesome. Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao said that a “flight debrief” had been conducted and there would be no investigation.<br>In March, two pilots pulled off an unauthorized low-altitude flyover near the singer Kid Rock’s estate in Tennessee. The Army suspended the airmen and launched a formal safety investigation—but the Pentagon overrode Army leadership, immediately lifting the suspension and terminating the safety review. Hegseth declared on X, “No punishment. No investigation. Carry on, patriots.”<br>Tom Bartlett: Pete Hegseth wants YOU to test your testosterone<br>Earlier this month, the South Carolina National Guard suspended eight Apache-attack-helicopter pilots who had executed a low-altitude flyover during the Salute From the Shore event celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. Hegseth posted, “We’ll fix this. Carry on, Patriots.” Again, the military removed the suspensions and ended its investigation.<br>Hegseth seems to believe that hotdogging and showboating improve morale. I can tell you from personal experience as a military aviator that nothing destroys morale as completely as having one’s commanding officer call a meeting to announce that Cutlass 470 was lost with all hands. At that funeral—for the crew of an aircraft that went down not because it was showing off for an audience but for unknown reasons during a routine maintenance flight—the coffins were empty because the bodies were unrecoverable at the time. Such tragedies devastate the units they leave behind, and the antics that Hegseth now promotes make them likelier.<br>What we do know is that tragedies happen when the military tolerates daredevil behavior. Past air shows have gone horribly wrong when military aviators have cut their margins too close. In Ukraine, 77 people were killed and 543 injured in a 2002 air show where a fighter jet didn’t pull up in time. A crash at the Farnborough Air Show in 1952 killed 29 and injured 60, leading the British government to adopt strict regulations to protect people on the ground.<br>The job of U.S. military flight-demonstration teams is inherently dangerous. In 1973, three Blue Angels collided, resulting in a crash so catastrophic that no identifiable human remains were recovered. In 1982, four members of the Thunderbirds Air Force demonstration team were killed when they were unable to pull up in time from a loop. One of the most common causes of mishaps for these teams is called “controlled flight into terrain” and occurs when an aircraft fully under its pilot’s control collides with water, the ground, or an obstacle. If the Blue Angel aircraft in last week’s video had clipped its wing on the water below, it could easily have become flaming wreckage tearing through the crowd the pilot had been performing for.<br>Perhaps the most famous such incident in the United States was the crash of a B-52 at Fairchild Air Force Base in 1994. The pilot pulled a showboating stunt and killed everyone on board. The flight was a final run before the pilot’s and co-pilot’s retirement, so both of their families were watching as the bomber stalled at a high angle of bank at low altitude, hit the ground at high speed, and exploded in a fireball that could be seen for miles.<br>One of the first things you learn as a military aviator is this: Rules are written in blood. They exist for a reason, even if you don’t know what it is. When I went through flight school, the Fairchild Air Force Base tragedy was the case study on the importance of speaking up about safety concerns and the lethal price of ignoring the rules. Virtually every regulation came into being because people died, and the military wants to prevent that from happening again.<br>I have spent almost 30 years in military and civilian aviation, most of them in helicopters. Along the way, I’ve buried six friends lost in military-aviation accidents....