Lawsuit against the FAA
By Former FAA Inspector

In an unprecedented attempt to circumvent the cover-up of deep-seated corruption in the government's aviation safety offices that enabled to occur a steady stream of deadly airline disasters, former federal airline safety investigator Rodney Stich filed federal lawsuits to report and halt the corrupt activities related to a series of airline disasters.

Rodney Stich filed the first of several lawsuits against the FAA and NTSB, seeking to report the documented corruption related to several recent major airline disasters. Federal district and appellate judges admitted the gravity of the charges, but upon motion by DOJ lawyers to block the suit, the judges states these were matters for Congress to investigate. Stich was not asking the federal judges to investigate the criminal activities, but to receive the reports as required by the federal crime reporting statute. The following are some of the legal filings:

• Complaint filed in federal courts against FAA in September 1974. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)
   

• Interrogatories submitted to Department of Justice, September 74. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)
   

• Order halting discovery, relieving the DOJ of responding to interrogatories. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)
   

• Stich's motion to continue discovery, February 5, 1975. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)
   

• DOJ lawyers motion to dismiss, blocking Stich from reporting the criminal
   activities related to a series of fatal airline disasters. (Adobe PDF)
   

• Stich's opposition to motion to dismiss, February 24, 1975. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)
   

• U.S. district judge Schnacke issued order dismissing action, February 28, 1975. (MS Word) (MS Word)

Court of Appeals Filings at San Francisco
 

• Stich filed appeal brief, September 11, 1975. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)
   

• Stich filed appeal reply brief, October 28, 1975. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)
   

• Order of dismissal by court of appeal judges, including Judge Anthony Kennedy, who would later be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. April 7, 1977. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)
   

• Stich filed petition for rehearing, April 20, 1977. (MS Word) (Adobe PDF)
   

• Stich v. United States, et al. 554 F.2d 1070 (9th Cir.) (table), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 920 (1977).

Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court

• Petition for writ of certiorari filed with U.S. Supreme Court. April 30, 1977. (Adobe PDF)
   

• Refusal by U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, thereby aiding and abetting the corruption and complicity in subsequent airline disasters made possible by the corruption and the cover-ups. (Adobe PDF)

Serious Judicial Problems

The dismissal of the actions seeking to report ongoing criminal activities associated with an ongoing series of deadly consequences knowingly sacrificed the lives that would be lost. As the continuing corruption resulted in continuing deaths−made possible by the judicial obstruction of justice, large segments of the federal judicial system−including the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, were at risk of being exposed as enablers.

That danger became real at a later date when Stich started publishing documentary books and appearing on hundreds of radio and TV shows.

Lawsuit Against the NTSB
On Basis of Cover-Ups

Stich v. National Transportation Safety Board, 685 F.2d 446 (9th Cir.) (table), cert.denied, 459 U.S. 861 (1982))(addressed repeated criminal falsification of official airline accident reports, omitting highly sensitive air safety misconduct, making possible repeated crashes from the same sequestered problems). 

That lawsuit sought to force the NTSB to receive evidence relating to the primary misconduct that enabled the direct cause of the PSA San Diego crash to occur.

That San Diego crash was the world's worst airline disaster at that time, taking the record from the United Airlines crash into New York City−the disaster that caused the FAA to give Stich the assignment to correct the conditions responsible for the worst series of airline disasters in the nation's history.

Assistant U.S. attorney George Small telephoned Stich upon receiving the complaint, advising Stich that he was recommending to his Washington superiors that the DOJ supports the action. Unknown to Small, Washington DOJ officials had been covering up for the misconduct in the FAA and NTSB for years, and any support for Stich's action would risk exposing this complicity. Small then filed a motion to dismiss, blocking the action, and the federal judge dutifully complied.

Both actions were taken to the U.S. Supreme Court, making the justices aware of the cover-ups by federal judges over whom the Justices had supervisory responsibilities.

Information and documents on lawsuit against NTSB, 1980.

These matters are detailed in Unfriendly Skies: 20th and 21st Centuries.

Friend-of-the-Court Brief in DC-10 Lawsuit

The story of how the DC-10 was certified, knowing of major safety problems, was a classic example of how people died from the actions of FAA management personnel in the Western Region where Stich exposed massive corruption. As a result of the catastrophic DC-10 disaster near Paris, a lawsuit was filed.

Amicus curiae brief filed on July 17, 1975, in the Paris DC-10 multi-district litigation, Flanagan v. McDonnell Douglas Corporation and United States of America, Civil Action 74-808-PH, MDL 172, Central District California, addressing the long standing FAA misconduct, of which the cover-up of the DC-10 cargo door problem was one of repeated instances of tragedy related misconduct.

Rules of court required that Stich obtain the approval of the lead law firm in that action, and Stich did receive that approval. However, the judge dismissed Stich's filing before Stich could provide insider information on why FAA management had approved design defects that would knowingly result in major air disasters. Lawsuit details.

Justice Department lawyers and federal judges blocked the reporting and production of evidence related to the pattern of documented air safety and criminal violations associated with a series of specific airline crashes, and reflecting the culture that still exists, which played an undercover role in certain recent airline crashes. These activities made possible many airline crashes, fatal hijackings, and the terrorist hijackings of September 11, 2001.

Eventually, these same two groups retaliated against former FAA inspector Rodney Stich for attempting to report these corrupt and criminal activities, and inflicted grave personal and financial harm upon him to halt his exposure activities.

Subsequent Lawsuits Related to Corruption
In Other Areas of Government

The type of corruption that existed involving people responsible for aviation safety did not occur in a vacuum; it was a culture that existed in the conduct of people in control of other government operations. Over a period of years, as Stich discovered other areas of corruption from the long list of other government agents and insiders that contacted him, he sought to report these other matters, and was repeated blocked by federal judges and Department of Justice employees.

Just prior to the hijackings of four airliners on September 11, 2001, Stich filed a federal lawsuit that addressed:

• The continuing corruption of people in ma key segment of the Federal Aviation Administration.

• The corruption that he and his sources discovered in the Department of Justice.

• The corruption of people in the CIA.

• The massive and repeated violations of civil and constitutional rights that were parallel efforts to silence him.

Each and every one of the issues, and the defendants named in that lawsuit, were those that played primary roles for the conditions that made it easy for terrorists to hijack four airliners on 9/11, kill nearly 3,000 people, and set in motion events that had even greater catastrophic consequences for the United States. The following is that and two additional and final attempts to report these matters:

• Lawsuit filed in federal court at Sacramento, California, shortly before the 9/11 hijackings. That lawsuit tried to report the corruption within the FAA, the Department of Justice, and the CIA. Each of these departments had a key role in the conditions that enabled four groups of terrorists to easily hijack four airliners and kill nearly 3,i000 people.
   

• Lawsuit filed in the federal courts in New York City, shortly after the 9/11 hijackings, seeking to report the criminal activities that played a major role in enabling the terrorists to hijack four airliners.
   

• Another lawsuit filed in the federal courts in Washington, D.C.

In every filing that involved the judges in the court of appeals, usually all of them, they become complicit in the cover-ups and became enablers to forward catastrophic events. That provided another incentive−protecting themselves against criminal prosecution−to continue the long series of judicial obstruction of justice and judicial retaliation.

Recognizing the enormity of the corruption, the enormity of the cover-ups, the enormity of total indifference, including by the American public, former federal agent Rodney Stich gave up his attempts to use legal means to expose and halt the corruption, or even expect to force a change. He then devoted himself to documenting the sordid scenario for possible future generations that might be more responsive.

Additional Links

• FAA culture.
   
• Sampling of airline crashes enabled to occur by the culture of corruption.
   
• Conduct of federal judges over a period of 30 years repeatedly blocking the reports of criminal activities in the aviation sectors and then in other areas of overt and covert government operations.
   
• Criminal contempt of court charges filed against the former federal agent by Department of Justice prosecutors and federal judges in retaliation for seeking to report federal crimes that he was required to report and which any citizen has a duty to report.
   
• The group of lawyers and law firms filing sham legal actions that served as parallel actions in seeking to halt the exposure activities.
   
• Sampling of enablers that made 9/11 possible.