FAA Harassed Pilot of Fatal CJ Crash

Isabel Goyer

Thursday, May 01, 2003 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

The DOT Office of the Inspector General (OIG) concluded that FAA personnel at the Kansas City Flight Standards District Office (FSDO) abused their authority and harassed pilot Joseph Brinell.
This OIG investigation followed "troubling irregularities" and bias in the FAA's own internal probe, with the OIG ultimately supporting the NTSB's finding that stress from FAA actions contributed to Brinell's fatal 1999 plane crash.
The harassment involved a series of unwarranted actions, including attempts to revoke Brinell's examiner status and repeated investigations, despite his unblemished record.
Despite the OIG recommending disciplinary action against the implicated FSDO supervisor and inspector for abuse of regulatory authority, the supervisor was later promoted.

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The Department of Transportation’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recently completed an investigation into the alleged harassment of a Missouri pilot, Joseph Brinell, by the FAA. The report found that personnel at the Kansas City Flight Standards District Office (FSDO), including a supervisor, had indeed abused their authority in their dealings with Brinell. The OIG only initiated its investigation after it found that the FAA’s own probe into the affair was biased in favor of the FAA personnel involved and that it contained “troubling irregularities.”

While under normal circumstances the FAA’s alleged mistreatment of a pilot wouldn’t warrant headlines, in this case the pilot in question was at the controls of a Cessna CitationJet that crashed while on a GPS approach to a small airport in Point Lookout, Missouri, on December 9, 1999. Brinell died in the crash, along with five others.