Dear Chair Homendy,
When Melissa and I met, she was 20 and I was 21. I had an intense feeling right away that she would become the most important person in my life – and to my amazement, she did. Over the course of nine years, we did everything together. It still felt like our lives were just beginning. She was the love of my life. She had a gift for making people feel seen, and was the go-to person among her friends – whether they needed guidance, someone to listen, or just a giggle.
I was waiting for her to arrive home to our apartment in Brooklyn from a work trip to the University of Kansas the night she was killed. We lived in DC for four years, and had flown out of DCA countless times. That night, it was just a coincidence she happened to be connecting through there. I was always afraid of flying and she would comfort me when we flew together. This month she would’ve turned 29. I hope this can be a reminder that on January 29, sixty-seven universes were permanently torn apart. The pain of these losses will echo across the rest of our lives.
I also hope that you will seek accountability across the FAA and Army to ensure something like this can never happen again. I hope that you will leave no stone unturned, ask the hard, uncomfortable questions that will ruffle feathers, and let no one, in power or otherwise, obfuscate or delay the truth.
Sincerely, Ben
* * *
Ben gave me his permission to share his words with you and I’m so grateful he did; it’s among the most meaningful letters I’ve ever received.
Allowing his poignant words to be shared publicly … deeply personal sentiments borne from unimaginable sorrow … is a gift … a profound act of generosity.
But it’s also something else, and that’s what I want to talk about today.
It’s a call to action — a call to ensure such tragedies never happen again.
We just heard a powerful panel with the same message: “Honoring Legacy with Action.”
That's what Ben and the families of 5342 are calling for.
That’s what every family we meet under the worst of circumstances demands … it’s what they deserve from an agency that is 100% committed — 24/7/365 — to safety.
And if you’re in this room, it’s what they demand and deserve from each of you. because if you’re sitting here, you are a safety leader.
And leaders are called to act.
Act to prevent future tragedy.
Act to ensure no other family experiences such tremendous loss and heartbreak.
Act to ensure the tragedies we investigate today become the lives we save tomorrow.
That is our mission. That is our mandate; that is our promise ... my promise.
Let me show you what that looks like.
June 10, 1999. It’s 3:27 p.m. in Bellingham, Washington. A 16-inch-diameter steel pipeline ruptures, releasing 237,000 gallons of gasoline, over about an hour and a half, into a creek that flows through Whatcom Falls Park.
No one could’ve imagined that — what began as 911 reports from residents and businesses of a strong odor along Whatcom Creek — would become one of the worst onshore pipeline disasters in U.S. history.
The first 911 call comes in at 4:24, not from the pipeline company, but from a resident who reports that as she was driving across a bridge, she smelled a strong odor that made breathing difficult.
Three minutes later, another resident calls 911, reports the same odor, and adds that Whatcom Creek is discolored.
A short time later, that same resident calls back and says his dog is convulsing and he’s evacuating because the odor is overwhelming.
Calls to 911 are now rolling in and the Bellingham Fire Department is on scene.
No one has heard from the pipeline company.
At 4:30 p.m., an employee of the pipeline company who happens to be in the area also calls 911 and his company’s control room in Renton to make sure they’re aware of the situation.
At the same time, the fire department is contacting the pipeline company to let them know there’s a significant amount of gasoline in the water and overwhelming fumes are enveloping the city of Bellingham.
It isn’t until 4:46 p.m. … a full hour and 19 minutes after the rupture occurred … that the operator shuts down the pipeline.
Think about that: 79 minutes went by before they shut down the pipeline.
By then, it’s too late.
The broken pipeline has been spewing 7,000 gallons of gasoline a minute down the forested canyon toward downtown Bellingham.
At about 5:02 p.m., the gasoline ignites, creating a massive fireball that travels over a mile and a half down the creek corridor and torches everything in its path. The plume of smoke soars to 30,000 feet, visible from Vancouver, British Columbia.
Witnesses report it sounds “like a jet plane flying through the creek bed” and that “it was like an atomic bomb mushroom cloud rising up over the city.”
Tragically, three children are killed.
Liam, a teenager, is flyfishing; he’s overcome by fumes, loses consciousness, and drowns.
Two other children, Wade and Stephen, survive the initial blast but suffer second- and third-degree burns over 90% of their bodies and die the next day; they’re just 10 years old.
The Bellingham tragedy occurred 30 years after the NTSB first warned about the devastating effects of delay in shutting down failed pipelines.
Thirty years.
You know what prompted the first recommendation?
A pipeline explosion that occurred in Hapeville, Georgia, that killed nine people in a daycare center, including seven children. Three other children were seriously injured.
That was 1968; Bellingham, 1999.
It wasn’t until 2006 that the recommendations from Bellingham were fully implemented.
But guess what? We’re still working to implement our recommendations to pipeline operators on rapidly shutting down failed pipelines, nearly 60 years later.
* * *
Let’s go to Graniteville, South Carolina. It’s 2:39 a.m. on January 6, 2005. A Norfolk Southern freight train is traveling about 47 mph along the tracks.
As it nears the Avondale Mills textile plant, the train encounters a misaligned switch, so it veers off the main track, onto a siding, and plows right into a parked train.
The collision derails both head-end locomotives and the first 16 cars of the striking train, including three tank cars, each of which contains 90 tons of chlorine.
One of them is punctured and releases chlorine gas.
If you don’t know much about hazmat, liquefied chlorine can generate a gaseous cloud with a volume that’s 450 times greater than the volume of the liquid released.
Within minutes, a large toxic cloud begins to form and extends about 2,500 feet to the north; 1,000 feet to the east; 900 feet to the south; and 1,000 feet to the west.
Wind is light so it settles in the low areas around the tracks. The water in nearby Horse Creek turns into hydrochloric acid.
Workers at Avondale Mills nearest the crash can’t breathe. They smell the chlorine and feel their eyes and lungs burn. Some are vomiting; a number of them are fleeing.
Over the next 10 minutes, about a dozen calls are made to 911 with some callers reporting a low-lying yellow haze that smells like bleach.
Within about an hour, more than 100 additional 911 calls are received. By 6:00 a.m., more than 200 calls.
Meanwhile, volunteer firefighters are trying desperately to approach the scene but the smell is too intense. They can’t breathe so they withdraw and call in a hazmat team.
Ultimately, nine people die from chlorine gas inhalation: Chris Seeling who was the train’s engineer and whose parents I came to know, six employees of Avondale Mills, one truck driver, and one resident.
Five-hundred-fifty-four people suffering respiratory difficulties are taken to local hospitals; more than 5,000 others are evacuated.
The conductor, who survived, reported in interviews that he and Chris got out of the locomotive, walked about 100 yards, and laid down.
The problem is that gaseous chlorine is two-and-a-half times heavier than air. It sinks to the ground. That’s where Chris died.
You know what would’ve prevented this accident? Technology called Positive Train Control, which automatically stops a train from colliding head-on with another train and moving through workzones or improperly aligned switches, like this one.
We had been recommending Positive Train Control for 36 years when Chris died.
In that time, the NTSB investigated 154 rail accidents that claimed over 300 lives and injured over 6,800 people, many seriously so.
All preventable.
It took a full five decades to make Positive Train Control a reality … 50 years of investigation, advocacy, and persistence from the NTSB.
In the end, it took an act of Congress.
* * *
Fast forward to Labor Day Weekend 2019. It’s 3:14 a.m.
The U.S. Coast Guard receives a distress call from the Conception, a small passenger vessel, about 75-feet-long, anchored in Platts Harbor on the north side of Santa Cruz Island, not far from Santa Barbara, California.
Aboard the Conception are 33 passengers: A family of five, people celebrating birthdays, high school students, teachers … all pursuing their passion for diving on a Labor Day weekend adventure that comes to a tragic end.
Five crewmembers are asleep in their bunks on the upper deck; one crewmember and all 33 passengers are asleep in the bunkroom below.
A crewmember sleeping in the upper deck berth is awakened by a noise and gets up to investigate. He sees a “glow” outside and then fire rising up from the main deck below, so he alerts the four other crewmembers sleeping on the upper deck.
The captain immediately goes for the radio and makes a distress call to the Coast Guard.
The four other crewmembers jump down from the upper deck to help everyone trapped in the bunkroom but are blocked by fire and overwhelmed by thick smoke.
As the fire intensifies, all five crewmembers jump overboard. Two swim to the stern and re-board the vessel in hopes of finding survivors.
Unfortunately, access to the salon through the aft corridor is also blocked by fire, so, along with the captain, they launch the vessel’s skiff and pick up the remaining two crewmembers in the water.
The crew desperately searches for another vessel nearby where the captain continues to radio for help, while two crewmembers return to the waters around the burning Conception to search for survivors.
Despite intense firefighting and search and rescue efforts, the vessel burns to the waterline and sinks just after daybreak.
No survivors are found. All 34 people in the bunkroom are dead.
It’s worth mentioning that there was an emergency exit in the bunkroom. If you could find it in the dark, you had to crawl up three bunks, push out a square hatch, and shimmy up through it one by one.
But you still wouldn’t have survived because the main exit and the emergency exit ended in the same location: the main deck that was fully ablaze.
The Conception remains the deadliest marine accident in recent U.S. history. It’s also the one that stays with me.
The first full day that I was on scene we met with the families who lost loved ones in the family assistance center. They knew that I had visited a vessel that morning that was similar to the Conception.
I wanted to see bunkroom, the main exit, and the emergency exit. And I wanted to see how difficult it would be to escape a fire.
One of the family members stood up and asked me, do you think my son could have escaped?
I had to be honest; my answer was, “No.”
No one should ever have to hear that.
Today, all recommendations from the Conception are implemented but one.
It’s on something you’re all familiar with: safety management systems, something we first recommended for mariners two decades ago … and specifically for small passenger vessels for nearly 15 years.
The Coast Guard is still sitting on it, but we’re still pushing for action alongside the Conception families.
* * *
When it comes to aviation safety, ALPA — like the NTSB — is no stranger to speaking up, to using your voice ... your powerful voice ... to demand action.
ALPA was right there beside us as we investigated the runway incursion at Austin … the door plug on Alaska Airlines flight 1282 … the near collision at JFK … and now, DCA.
And that’s what I want to come back to.
I mentioned those other tragedies because we don’t stop fighting for action.
Ben in his letter rightfully demanded it.
The families of flight 5342 rightfully demanded it, again earlier today at a press conference. Jason and I were there to show our strong support.
The loss of 67 people on January 29, 2025, should have been a wake-up call that more needs to be done to improve aviation safety ... that we should be doing everything we can to save lives now.
But the silence has been deafening.
Where is everyone who promised action on January 30th?
DCA occurred 595 days ago; almost two years.
It’s been 232 days since we adopted our final report with 50 safety recommendations, all aimed at preventing a similar tragedy.
Guess how many have been implemented?
Before you answer, a reminder: the DCA collision occurred 595 days ago.
One.
Every single safety recommendation we issued is critical to ensure the safety of the traveling public.
Every single one is designed to prevent this from happening again.
Every single day that passes without their implementation represents an unacceptable risk to aviation safety.
An unacceptable risk to crewmembers.
An unacceptable risk to passengers.
An unacceptable risk to your families.
About two-thirds of those 50 recommendations — 33 in total — are directed to the FAA.
They responded and, yesterday, the Board called their response to 11 of those recommendations “unacceptable.” They include recommendations on:
- Realistic, scenario-based training for air traffic controllers;
- Strengthening standards for combining controller positions;
- Increasing pay for overworked controllers at DCA, which has the single busiest runway in the nation;
- Notifying operators and flight crews of near misses;
- And one of the most critical of all: mandating that all aircraft operating in airspace where ADS-B Out is required to also be equipped with ADS-B In with a cockpit display of traffic information that is configured to provide alerting audible to the pilot and/or flight crew.
As I’ve said many times, ADS-B In could have prevented this tragedy.
In their response, the FAA didn’t commit to implementing ADS-B In.
The fact is, we’ve been advocating for ADS-B In for decades. From our letter to FAA in 2008: “The Safety Board believes that the benefits of ADS-B technology warrant rapid adoption” and “the equipage of aircraft with ADS-B In capability will provide an immediate and substantial contribution to safety, especially in and around airports.”
As the entity ultimately accountable for U.S. aviation safety, the FAA’s lack of action is unconscionable — especially in the wake of the deadliest U.S. aviation disaster in a generation.
That’s why we’re urging Congress to act … to work together on a final bill.
But nothing changes until it becomes law.
We must not miss this singular opportunity to improve aviation safety.
The fact is, every tragedy we investigate ... every recommendation we issue ... is marked in blood. Someone has lost a loved one ... a father, a mother, sister, a brother, a friend.
And we’ve told everyone how to fix it; how to prevent the next one; how to save a life.
It’s time for action — action that was promised months ago.
If you didn’t know this about me, I was a card-carrying member of Teamsters Local 70.
I know all too well the struggles of working families, like mine … like yours.
I know the importance of safety … of fighting for change and never giving up.
I also know how hard it is to fight for safety change.
But you can’t give up.
We have a saying in the labor movement, one I often return to: Mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.
Say it with me: Mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.
Say it again: Mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.
We owe it to the victims: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.
We owe it to the families who continue to grieve their loss: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.
We owe it to the millions of people who rely on the safety of our aviation system every day: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.
We owe it to every ALPA member who deserves to return home safely to their loved ones: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.
We owe it to Liam, Wade, and Stephen — three kids who just wanted to go flyfishing or play at a Bellingham park: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.
We owe it to Chris and eight other people who suffocated in a toxic cloud caused by a preventable rail disaster in Graniteville, South Carolina: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.
We owe it to the 34 people taking a diving trip on board the Conception … 34 people who never made it back home: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.
We owe it to Melissa and 66 others who died 595 days ago … just a few miles from here … in a midair collision over the Potomac River: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.
And never give up.
We owe it to them and so many others to never, ever give up.
Because we won’t.
I won’t.
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