FAA—the Tombstone Agency

As detailed and documented in the Rodney Stich's Unfriendly Skies and other books,  in FAA documents, in an FAA hearing, and in federal lawsuits, deep-seated misconduct by key people repeatedly blocked the corrective actions to correct known safety problems and safety violations, which resulted in decades of preventable and forewarned aviation disasters.

These included decades of easily preventable airliner hijackings and other disasters. The catastrophic consequences on September 11, 2001, were the latest and most publicized consequences. The present cover-up of the behind-the-scene misconduct insures that the decades of deja vu consequences will continue.

A quick description of how hard-core corruption of key people in the FAA−and key people at United Airlines−by their misconduct, enabled 43 people to be cremated alive in only one of the many fraud-related airline disasters. Click here to see how the system works!

• Overview of corruption of key people in the government's aviation safety offices, similar in some ways to the corruption in the housing and financial frauds and other great American disasters, non of which occurred in a vacuum is shown by this page.
   
• In response to the continuing corruption and the continuing airline disasters made possible by the corruption. FAA inspector Rodney Stich used the law as it had never been used before: he forced upon the FAA a court-like proceeding before an administrative law judge in which Stich acted similar to a prosecutor. He charged key FAA management with gross corruption related to several major airline disasters that occurred in his immediate area of federal airline safety responsibilities.
   
• Toward the end of the several-month-long trial, Stich included in the 4500-page hearing transcript a closing brief that warned that the culture of corruption would continue and the related crashes and deaths would continue.
   
• During the hearing, three more major airline disasters occurred, each one resulting from the exact same safety problems that Stich had repeatedly reported in writing. The last one occurred after Stich submitted his closing brief and before the hearing officer, William Jennings, an attorney on the FAA's administrative staff, issued a decision that was totally contrary to the evidence. a cover-up would result in continuation of the problems and continuation of the crashes and deaths.
   
• These crashes and deaths continued during the hearings, and continued after the Stich's closing brief was filed. The deaths of 43 passengers in the United Airlines crash at Salt Lake City−by being cremated alive−didn't phase the hearing officer in the least: he criminally covered up for the misconduct, praised the people perpetrating the corruption, and played a key role in subsequent crashes and deaths that occurred. Jennings left the FAA at some later date and became−believe not−the safety director for the Airline Passengers Association, which has been renamed the International Airline Passengers Association.
   
• As the crashes continued, and while Stich was still in the FAA, the head of the FAA's Sky Marshal program urged Stich to file a report with the FAA administrator concerning the corruption and related crashes. Stich complied, sending a cover letter and the report in pdf format.
   
  • Cover letter (August 8, 1966) in the following formats: (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)
     
  • The long report attached to the cover letter is shown here in three parts in Adobe PDF format: (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3). 
     
• Following a pattern that Stich discovered over the next 40 years, the report was followed by further cover-ups, insuring that the corrupt culture and the resulting airline disasters would continue. On that same program for which Stich had oversight responsibilities, the world's worst airline disaster at that time occurred, the United Airlines crash into the Brooklyn section of New York City.
   
• The crashes did continue for many years, but eventually, forces outside of the area of corruption acted to reduce the frequency of airline disasters. However, isolated airline disasters did periodically occur, and hundreds of people perished. Two of the many are stated below:
   
  • United Airlines crash into the city of Portland, Oregon, due to the very same problems that Stich had repeatedly reported in writing. The scandal had such major possible public outrage that the NTSB refused to conduct the normal public hearing.
     
  • DC-10 -related FAA corruption.
     
  • September 11, 2001, the day that a record number of airline disasters occurred. The conditions that enabled four groups of terrorists to so easily hijack four airliners, when the plans were known for weeks, and the steps to prevent hijackings were known and easily put into place. The nearly 3,000 direct deaths were ripple effects, sometimes called the Butterfly Effect, from years of corruption of certain key people in the FAA and the endemic cover-ups of which marks the deep-seated culture in the United States.
     
  • And also, the indifference of the public, who had heard Stsich on radio and saw him on TV in over 3,000  appearances since 1978, and the thousands who read various editions of his book, the latest edition relating to aviation being called Unfriendly Skies: 20th & 21st Centuries. And for the hundreds of next-of-kin, who should have been outraged, and were aware of this information, their only reaction was to file lawsuits for money damages.
     
  • Pictures of some of United Airlines' worst disasters, also directly associated with the many safety problems, corruption, and even criminal activities, of certain key people at that airline and FAA management, are not available because they either crashed into the Pacific Ocean shortly after taking off from Los Angeles, or the airline that crashes into Lake Michigan while approaching Chicago.

Pattern of Refusing to
Act on Deadly Safety Problems

Pattern of FAA management personnel refusing to take corrective actions on major air safety and criminal violations reported by federal air safety inspectors, despite their duty to do so.

FAA management practice of covering up for major safety problems and safety violations at politically powerful airlines, despite the continuing crashes due to the problems. In one instance repeatedly documented at a major airline, inspectors reported the airline was not providing the legally required training and competency checks of their pilots and flight engineers and falsifying government-required records to fraudulent indicate that this training was being provided. FAA management at local, regional, and Washington levels covered up for this practice and retaliated against inspectors who reported the federal offenses.

FAA management practice of instructing FAA inspectors not to file reports on safety problems or safety violations at politically powerful airlines.

Warnings that Reports on Unsafe
Conditions Makes the Office Look Bad
 

FAA management warning federal air safety inspectors not to report air safety problems or air safety violations, claiming the office (and they) would look bad when an airliner crash resulted (from the uncorrected safety problems and safety violations).

Destroying Official Reports
On Major Safety Problems

Destruction of official government air safety reports of major air safety problems and air safety violations that were filed by federal air safety inspectors, followed by numerous specific air disasters resulting from the same problems and made possible by the criminal destruction of government reports. FAA management had a practice of removing official reports of safety problems and safety violations from the office files, giving them back to the inspectors. or destroying them. Destroying official documents are felonies.

Retaliating Against Inspectors
That Report Safety Problems

FAA management harassing, threatening, and retaliating against federal air safety inspectors who attempt to report or carry out the federal government's air safety responsibilities.
 

FAA management practice of retaliating against inspectors who continued to make reports of major safety problems and safety violations, or who tookauthorized actions on safety problems that they encountered. This retaliation included forced transfers, denial of promotions, unsatisfactory fitness reports, denial of desired training, and numerous petty actions.

Federal aviation safety inspectors who sought to report and act on serious safety problems and violations were threatened by airline management at certain politically powerful airlines with being transferred. FAA management's protection of this practice encouraged airline personnel to continue their unsafe practice and safety violations.

FAA Management Removing Inspectors
From Areas of Known Safety Problems

Removal of key federal air safety inspectors from their government air safety duties to eliminate their reporting and taking actions on serious air safety problems or air safety violations.

Suspending Inspector for
Reporting Safety Problems

FAA inspector was suspended for several weeks after he reported the high-sink-rate procedure used by a powerful member of the pilots union, Bart Stephens. Stich had also reported another pilot as having this problem, Gale Kehmeier, and recommended that he be given corrective training. The training was never given, and several months later, that same captain flew into Salt Lake City airport and crashed due to the high sink rate problem. That crash occurred before the FAA hearing had concluded and shortly after Stich submitted his closing brief warning of the consequences of the safety problems and the arrogance and corruption within the FAA.

Criticizing Stich for reporting a captain who flew in and out of clouds, under a visual flight plan, with a load of passengers in the Lake Tahoe area. That same captain, at a later date, doing the same unsafe practice, crashed into a mountain peak flying a Lockheed Constellation, killing everyone on board.

Alternate Supervising inspector, William Perry, criticized Stich for reporting failure of pilots to look outside the aircraft for long periods of time--while other aircraft were approaching head-on. This was at a time when midair collisions were frequent occurrences.

This practice is universal, and occurred with people in government who reported problems with terrorism, and with people who reported the truth relative to the serial lying about Iraq by White House politicians and their shills in and out of government.

Pressure to Ignore Safety Problems

FAA management encouraging inspectors to ignore major air safety problems by providing outstanding performance ratings, financial bonuses, promotions, to those inspectors who don't report safety problems or safety violations, while simultaneously doing the reverse to those inspectors who do report the problems and attempt to take corrective actions.

All of these problems still exist, as reported to Stich. One particular example was the principle inspector for Alaskan Airlines who was pressured and resigned after reporting serious maintenance problems at that air carrier. Shortly thereafter, an Alaskan Airlines jet plunged into the ocean off of southern California when the unlubricated and worn-out horizontal stabilizer jackscrew failed. No pictures available of that disaster as the aircraft plunged into the Pacific Ocean at great speed and disintegrated.

Corruption Aided by
Unqualified FAA Inspectors

The corrupt practices were aided by the FAA inspectors who lacked airline or heavy military experience; those who wanted to live a quiet life until early retirement−especially military personnel; those who did not want confrontation with politically powerful airline like United Airlines, or aviation-ignorant FAA management; those who saw the path to promotions and higher pay as going along with FAA management.

Further complicating these problems has been the placement of unqualified, politically popular, people in key positions within the FAA, who lack the background and ability to recognize and  act on safety problems or to confront the deep-seated culture of corruption within certain FAA offices.

"Independent Prosecutor" Role
Motivated by Aviation Disasters

The extent of the FAA misconduct throughout the Western Region caused the safety problems and violations of major safety requirements at United Airlines to continue−along with a continuation of resulting airline crashes.

Unable to get members of Congress to intervene, despite their oversight responsibilities and despite the continuing death toll, FAA inspector Rodney Stich used the law in a creative manner and forced a hearing upon the FAA during which he subpoenaed FAA management and records. He conducted a hearing before a hearing officer from the FAA administrator's staff, charging that corruption within the FAA caused and enabled a series of specific airline crashes to occur. This had never before occurred in the FAA, and resulted in a 4000-page hearing transcript further proving the deep-seated widespread corruption within the FAA.

The transcript of the hearings show that FAA management personnel engaged in lying, with subornation of perjury by FAA legal counsel Donald Boberick, as the FAA organization was perverted to deny the existence of what was already proven by government records. No concern was shown for those who would subsequently due from their deception, including those on three airliners that crashed during the hearing and which were caused by the exact same safety problems and safety violations that Stich had repeatedly reported.

Criminal Acts During Air Safety Hearing

Expansion of cover-ups by FAA  management of crash-causing air safety misconduct when FAA inspectors testify and product official government reports of corruption within the FAA related to a series of fatal airline crashes. Over 4,000 pages of hearing transcript exists in FAA hearing supporting charges of corrupt and criminal activities within the FAA related to a series of fatal airline crashes.

Stich warned in his FAA closing brief that a cover-up would result in continuation of the problems and continuation of the crashes and deaths. These events quickly continued after that brief was filed.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of deep-seated corruption, the FAA hearing officer, William Jennings, a lawyer on the FAA Administrator's staff, misstated the evidence and praised the guilty, the very people responsible for the deadly misconduct. After the hearing and cover-up, the same people were given  letters of commendation and bonuses for their cooperation (or silence).

 Involved in the cover-up that would have deadly consequences−for decades−was the FAA hearing officer and the lawyers in the FAA legal department. Ironically, funerals were being conducted simultaneously for victims of this misconduct as reward was seeking to cover up these deadly conditions−the latest most publicized consequences occurring on 9/11.

This misconduct in the FAA is oftentimes referred to as the Tombstone Agency. But the corruption don't not permit dismissing it so lightly.

Details of the hearing, and the blueprint of crashes and deaths, can be found in Unfriendly Skies: 20th and 21st Centuries.

Deadly Corruption at United Airlines

The problems with arrogance and corruption in the FAA air carrier operations branch were only part of the problems that Stich faced. These problems within the FAA would not have surfaced if certain key people at United Airlines had not engaged in corrupt practices that violated blocks of major federal aviation safety requirements, which they sought to cover up by falsifying government-required records. This practice resulted in a continuation of a series of airline crashes−more than all the other airlines combined. This misconduct included, for instance:

• Not providing crewmembers the legally required and industry accepted training for its crewmembers.
   
• Falsifying government-required records to indicate the flight training was accomplished when the training had not been done.
   
• No providing emergency evacuation training on the yearly basis and then falsifying records to falsely indicate that the training had been done.
   
• Denying government inspectors access to air safety records that are required to be made accessible to federal inspectors.
   
• Competency levels of pilots and flight engineers conducted by FAA-approved airline personnel had an anything-goes standard, which eliminated the need for additional training and saved the airline considerable money.
   
• United Airlines personnel pressurizing FAA management to suspend or transfer government inspectors who reported the dangerous and felonious problems.
   
• UAL management threatening inspectors that the airline would cause an inspector to be transferred if he didn't start pleasing the airline.

Lawsuits Against the FAA

Former federal airline safety agent Rodney Stich, after leaving the FAA, filed lawsuits against the FAA, under the requirements of the federal crime reporting statute.

• Amended FAA complaint in federal court at San Francisco, September 27, 1974. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)
   
• Motion to continue discovery. February 4, 1975) (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)
   
• Stich's opposition to the motion to dismiss filed by U.S. Attorney. February 24, 1975. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)
   
• Oral argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals at San Francisco. February 28, 1975. (Adobe PDF)
   
• Order of dismissal by the court of appeal judges. February 28, 1975. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)
   
• Order by U.S. District Judge Schnacke, February 28, 1975. (MS Word)
   
• Stich's appeal brief, September 11, 1975. (Adobe PDF)
   
• Stich's reply brief, October 28, 1975. (Adobe PDF)
   
• Court of appeals decision, April 7, 1977. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)
   
• Stich's petition for rehearing to court of appeals, en banc, April 20, 1977. (Adobe PDF)
   
• Stich's petition for writ of certiorari to U.S. Supreme Court, April 30, 1977. (Adobe PDF)

Further airline disasters made possible by the cover-ups and obstruction of justice by Department of Justice officials, federal judges, and Supreme Court Justices.

Friend-of-the-Court Brief
In the Paris DC-10 Disaster

Stich, based upon his insider knowledge that would explain the corruption in the FAA that were responsible for approving the known defective components in the DC-10, filed a petition to intervene as a friend of the court in the Paris DC-10 crash, July 7, 1975. (Adobe PDF)

• Letter dated July 30, 1975. (Adobe PDF)

• Opposition, August 13, 1975. (Adobe PDF)

• Stich's amended motion to intervene, August 18, 1975. (Adobe PDF)

• Judge's order barring Stich from providing inside information on the Paris DC-10 crash, September 12, 1975. (Adobe PDF)

Cover-Ups by Political
NTSB Board Members

While he was a federal aviation safety agent, Stich discovered NTSB board members were covering up for the FAA corruption, and falsifying government accident reports to omit this primary factor. This cover-up would continue for years, partly to protect its earlier complicity, and be seen in the downing of TWA Flight 800 and the American Airlines Flight 587 that crashes shortly after takeoff from New York's JFK Airport, shortly after the 9/11 hijackings (which were also a byproduct of the NTSB cover-ups of prior years).

In 1978, a PSA Boeing 727 crashed into the City of San Diego, killing over 100 people, which took the record from the United Airlines DC-8 crash into New York City as the world's worst airline disaster. Stich discovered that the NTSB was withholding major information about why the crash occurred, and filed a petition with the NTSB to receive the evidence that Stich had uncovered. (Adobe PDF)

It is mandatory for the NTSB to receive such evidence when a petition is received. The NTSB refused to receive it. If they had, and publicized it, public outrage could very possibly have resulted in an investigation and that would have very probably exposed the deadly FAA corruption and the NTSB's cover-up of it.

So disturbed was Stich by the NTSB cover-ups in the PSA San Diego crash that he filed a lawsuit against the NTSB seeking to force it to enter into the official records evidence that it had withheld. December 17, 1980 (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)

After that lawsuit was filed in the federal courts at San Francisco, assistant U.S. attorney George Stoll called Stich on the phone and advised that he was recommending to his superiors in Washington that the DOJ supports Stich's lawsuit. Stoll was unaware that Washington officials had been covering up for the corruption in the FAA and NTSB that Stich had brought to their attention several years earlier, and they were not about to let this information become known.

Shortly thereafter, Stoll, who had supported Stich's lawsuit, then filed a motion to have it dismissed. (Adobe PDF)

The federal judge accommodated the request and filed an order dismissing the lawsuit. March 25, 1981.  (Adobe PDF)

Stich filed an objection to the motion to dismiss following the DOJ's reply brief. April 19, 1981. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)

Stich filed points and authorities in support of his objection to dismiss. April 11, 1981. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF).

He also filed Statement of Issues. April 11, 1981.(Adobe PDF)

Stich filed a reply brief to the DOJ's response to his objection.

Transcript of the proceedings in the district court. April 23, 1981. (Adobe PDF)

The second dismissal order by the district court judge. April 27, 1981. (Adobe PDF)

Stich then filed a motion to alter or amend, a legal term for the court to reconsider. May 3, 1981. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)

Stich filed a notice of appeal and filed appeal briefs with the U.S. Court of Appeals at San Francisco. The court dismissed the objection. (Adobe PDF)

Stich then filed an appeal (petition for writ of certiorari) with the U.S. Supreme Court and then filed a brief. July 17, 1982.  (Adobe PDF)

Then was followed by an amended brief. (Adobe PDF)

The U.S. Supreme Court issued an order refusing to receive the case. October 4, 1982. (Adobe PDF)

Earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court filed, and then refused to act on the lawsuit against the FAA that reported criminal activities related to a series of airline crashes, and the refusal by U.S. district and appellate judges to receive the information of criminal activities, that they were required to receive under the federal crime reporting statute. In this way, Supreme Court justices became implicated in the criminal activities, the tragic consequences, and over the years would compound these federal offenses when other areas of criminal misconduct were brought to their attention.

Universal Culture of Cover-Ups

Every level of the FAA, up to and including the FAA administrator, as seen in records in the possession of former government air safety agent Rodney Stich.

Reports to NTSB politically appointed board members. Stich reported the FAA misconduct, and the crimes of perjury and subornation of perjury during the FAA hearing, to the political members of the NTSB (at that time it was the CAB Bureau of Aviation Safety). They admitted to Stich that they had already been told of these problems by Stich's predecessor Instead of receiving the evidence of such misconduct as their legal mandate required, they covered up, knowing that deadly consequences would occur−and did occur.

This cover-up by NTSB board members enabled the conditions within the FAA to continue, which resulted in many preventable airline disasters. NTSB board members covered up for this relationship by omitting critical information from their official accident report, thereby falsifying the reports.

Lawsuit filed by former federal aviation safety agent against the NTSB (CAB Bureau of Aviation Safety at that time).

Cover-up by the FBI and other Justice Department divisions when federal air safety inspector sought to provide them with evidence, and when Stich had to circumvent their block to reach a federal grand jury. Shown by records and by charges in federal filings.

Complicity Through Cover-Ups
By Members of Congress

Bribe-taking members of Congress, who for 40 years had been provided reports of hard-core corruption within the FAA, and criminal activities in overt and covert government activities, and in every instance, covered up. They became enablers to the many resulting tragedies experienced by the people and the nation.

These are the same members of Congress, and the secretary of the Department of Transportation, whose crocodile tears cover up for the fact that they were repeatedly offered evidence of the corruption that resulted in a stead series of fatal airline crashes, fatal hijackings, and who helped insure the success of the September 11, 2001, terrorist hijackers. The cover-up of these matters by members of Congress following the September 11 tragedies will insure the protection of the guilty and continuation of the tragic consequences, as documented for the past 40 years in the books described at this site. 

Possible reasons for the congressional cover-ups include, for instance:

• The universal practice of accepting bribes−either overtly or covertly−subjects most of them to criminal prosecution by DOJ personnel.
   
• Concentrating on lobbyists and others who can provide bribes, sometimes called political contributions.

Sampling of letters sent to members of Congress over the years seeking to report criminal activities subverting vital U.S. interests.

Lawsuit filed against members of Congress in the federal courts at Washington, D.C., on the basis of their felony cover-ups and obstruction of justice. March 24, 1992. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF) The main purpose of filing that lawsuit was to make a record of the charges against members of Congress and their cover-ups, which continued the corruption and the decades of resulting tragedies for America.

Another lawsuit against members of Congress in the federal courts at Reno, Nevada.

Cover-Up Culture Among FBI-DOJ Personnel

Personnel in the Department of Justice, including U.S. attorneys and the FBI, were notified of the misconduct, the related airline crashes, and the federal crimes of perjury and subornation of perjury during the FAA hearings. They gave excuses for not receiving the information, even though Stich was a key federal aviation safety agent responsible for determining the existence of these federal offenses.

After the FAA hearing, and after FBI and DOJ personnel covered up for the criminal acts during that hearing, Stich circumvented the block and appeared before a federal grand jury in Denver. This is where Stich discovered how the grand jury is usually a tool of the prosecutor.

An example of the culture in the FBI and DOJ can be seen from the evidence of FBI agents engaging in murders with decades of Washington officials approving. These murders were reported locally by the media in the Boston and New York City area,, while media people made no mention of this far-reaching culture elsewhere in the United States (an example of how media people keep from the public information on serious corruption in government offices).

Sampling of relevant links:

• High-level FBI-DOJ personnel secreting advance notice of major terrorist attacks on U.S. targets from a mole inside a key al Qaeda cell, with the resulting 3500 deaths.

• Sampling of enablers making possible the 9/11 airline hijackings and 3,000 deaths.

• Comparison of blame for the 3,000 dead on 9/11.

Culture of Cover-Ups by Federal Judges

Cover-ups by federal judges when Stich filed federal actions under the federal crime reporting statute and under the statute providing for obtaining a court order requiring a federal official to perform his legal duty and to perform it in a legal manner. Many federal filings show this judicial obstruction of justice. Information at various sites, including list of lawsuits.

Federal judges, from 1978 to the present date, have repeatedly covered up for the criminal activities that Stich sought to report to a federal judge under the federal crime reporting statute.

Federal judges eventually issued a series of unlawful and unconstitutional injunctive orders permanently barring Stich from ever filing any papers in the federal court. These orders were intended to block the reporting of criminal activities to a federal judge that were required to be reported, and also voided for Stich the various federal defenses needed to defend against the parallel legal efforts by CIA-front law firms to destroy Stich's ability to continue his exposure activities.

The corrupt acts by federal judges are amply proven by judicial records. Further, Supreme Court Justices were implicated throughout this period in the criminal cover-ups and criminal retaliation. The sequence of obstruction of justice tactics by lawyers and judges made possible some of the nation's most catastrophic consequences.

Culture of Cover-Ups by Media People

Cover-ups by much of the media, who had been repeatedly told of these problems and offered hard evidence. This practice of cover-ups by media people continued into other areas as Stich and his group of other former government agents sought to report criminal activities in government that they had discovered during their professional government duties. Several reasons exist for the cover-ups by media people:

• CIA and other offices have had a secret practice of providing payments to media people for years, thereby controlling what gets reported.
   

• The herd mentality of media people.
   

• The fear of being targeted by exposing corruption in government that goes beyond the "tolerable."
   

• Laziness of media personnel.
   

• Fear of losing their government handouts if they report corruption in government.

Federal judges rendered orders permanently barring Stich from federal court access to prevent him from exercising the mandatory requirements under the federal crime reporting statute to report a federal crime to a federal court (or other federal officer; Justice Department personnel and members of Congress refused to receive the information).

Federal judges and Justice Department prosecutors charged Stich with criminal contempt of court when Stich attempted to report additional criminal activities, including that within the FAA and FBI, as described in his books.

Federal judges and a CIA-front law firm misused the courts to corruptly strip Stich of the $10 million in assets that funded his exposure of criminal and even subversive activities.

Cover-ups by lawyers and law firms who knew of the corrupt and criminal activities in the FAA.

Much of the broadcast and print media who knew of these serious matters, the prior consequences, and those that would continue and result in great tragedies.

Federal judges. In the early 1970s, federal actions filed by the former federal air safety inspector, seeking to report these criminal activities, were blocked by federal judges. They unlawfully refused to perform their administrative duties (not judicial duties) under the federal crime reporting statute and under the statute providing for any citizen to seek a court order to force a federal official to perform a legal duty and/or to halt their illegal conduct.

These obstruction of justice judicial acts were felonies. 

Lawsuits directly related to the events of 9/11.

Sampling of Consequences in continuing series of preventable aviation disasters, the association shown from the 1950s to the present date, made possible by the culture of cover-ups in the United States. This includes preventable attacks upon U.S. airliners in the U.S. and throughout the world.