Hands-on US aviation regulator flies into a new Boeing storm

Mike Whitaker knows first hand how challenging flying can be. The head of the US’s aviation safety agency once damaged his Cessna after a bungled landing soon after gaining his private pilot’s licence. The incident took place in his first stint at the FAA when he was the agency’s deputy head during Barack Obama’s presidency. No one was hurt but the FAA did investigate. “I was in the unusual position of being the number two guy at the FAA now being investigated by the FAA for not being a very good pilot,” Whitaker recalled during a 2019 interview on Aviation News Talk’s podcast. Whitaker had decided to get a pilot’s licence after he was appointed to the agency in 2013, hoping to understand its work and the air traffic control system better. “I needed to just not understand it at a theoretical level, but actually operate in the system,” he said. Whitaker, who returned to the FAA as its administrator last October, will need all that thoroughness to steer the agency through its current challenges. The aviation watchdog already had a long to-do list: a shortage of air traffic controllers has periodically crippled air traffic in the US, while safety concerns have increased after airline near misses. Precarious Congressional funding has hampered investment in infrastructure. On top of all this is the crisis at Boeing. The US plane maker is under pressure again after a section of a Boeing Max 737 9 aircraft blew out in mid-flight a fortnight ago.<br/>