Retaliation For Reporting

TransMedics, Inc.

TransMedics is keeping organs alive as pilots fly them across the country. The company has an interesting mission of expanding the pool of available donor organs and their technology is amazing, turning this into an extremely profitable business. Waleed Hassanein, the CEO of TransMedics Inc, (TMDX), is a surgeon worth $121.9 million, and two years ago purchased Summit Aviation on August 16, of 2023 to carry on the mission of donor transplant. Through the Summit purchase, TransMedics also acquired the Summit Aviation flight school and rebranded it, with their own name.

Therefore, the donor transport business is now in the business of teaching pilots to fly. I have to ask… what could possibly go wrong?

An insider from the company said:

 “Waleed assumed that he was buying a company with a competent management team, yet in reality he bought a 135 certificate and a company run by former CFI’s and lower rung regional pilots who are trying to run a division with over a quarter of a billion dollars in base assets alone (20-24 relatively new Phenom 300E’s) and the infrastructure to support the operation. They handle 130+ pilots and 20-24 aircraft in the same manner that they ran 8 planes and 30 pilots. And they do not like being told that they are wrong or that there is a better way of doing things.”

TransMedics hired Captain Terry Hand in September of 2023 to fly as Pilot-in-Command of their Embraer 300E jets in support of organ transplant transport. He’d been on property only 90 days when management requested that he fly with and assess a first officer. Terry filed a five-page comprehensive performance report. The following Spring TransMedic requested Terry assess another first officer and make the determination if he should receive a captain upgrade. Then in July of 2024, TransMedics Director of Training, Richard Good, approached Terry for a promotion.

Based upon the quality of Terry’s previous evaluations and his high-level of performance, Good requested he become a Line Check Airman (“LCA”). Terry Hand is no slouch. He is a professional aviator who possesses stick and rudder skills, and the very reason TransMedics did not lose a plane in the event you’re about to read.

In January of 2025, Terry was flying as pilot in command from Willow Run Airport, Michigan to Norfolk International Airport, Virgina, (YIP to ORF) when he experienced an abnormal temperature inversion that required him to descend from the assigned altitude in order to increase air speed and prevent a potential aircraft stall. Terry filed an ASAP and even spoke to the FAA. The FAA praised his airmanship, understood the human factors involved, and closed the case without any action taken against either of the pilots, Terry or his second in command. But that’s not where the story ends.

ASAP Report Filed:

“We were climbing up to FL450 and had been in icing conditions for quite a while. As we were climbing through the mid 30 Flight levels I changed autopilot modes from FLC to VS mode as our rate of climb had decreased and I wanted to maintain at least 500 fpm rate of climb. I noticed that the ISA was at approximately +4º in that area. As we climbed through FL410 I noticed our speed was coming back and we were much slower than normal. As I reduced our rate of climb to 500 fpm our speed continued to decrease. I suddenly realized at approximately FL 430 that our ISA had jumped very quickly to +12º in that area and we had not turned off our engine anti-ice once the SAT had gotten colder than -40º IAW with procedures. I immediately leveled off and pushed that power all the way but there was no immediate response in the airspeed and I felt like we had no choice but to descend quickly to stop the decay of airspeed. I told the SIC, to tell ATC that we had no choice but we needed to descend quickly and I started down slowly so as to not lose any more airspeed but to not descend rapidly so as to possibly cause another aircraft to get an RA. We descended about 500 feet before ATC gave us an altitude change to FL 370. ATC gave us a 25º left turn and a descent to FL370. He was on frequency with another aircraft and gave him a turn and a descent as well. We turned off the anti-ice and got down to FL 370 where the ISA was now at +7º and we recovered our airspeed relatively quickly. I did not declare an emergency to initiate the descent, and I do not recall hearing any aircraft notify ATC of an RA advisory.

So, what were the contributing factors? One was the engine anti-ice needing to be on for takeoff and for a good portion of the climb. That lulled us into forgetting that it was on. When that gets coupled with an abnormally high ISA deviation it created the scenario of airspeed bleeding off, that frankly just did not make sense when I initially saw it.

We corrected by at first adding power and turning off the anti-ice, but it was insufficient to reverse the decaying airspeed trend, at least not quickly. So, I made the decision to use the only option I had and that was to lower the nose carefully and descend. It was a good action to correct the bad action of leaving the engine anti-ice on too long.

What will I do in the future to prevent a reoccurrence? That’s pretty easy. The solution to this is to remember how uncomfortable the feeling of decaying airspeed up at altitude feels like and to keep the ISA in the scan more. Also, remember once the SAT drops to -40º or colder to turn off the engine anti-ice.”

Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP)

ASAP is a self-reporting program to encourage airline employees to report human error for system improvement without fear of disciplinary action from the FAA and the company.

“The goal of the Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP) is to enhance aviation safety through the prevention of accidents and incidents. Its focus is to encourage voluntary reporting of safety issues and events that come to the attention of employees of certain certificate holders.”

The goals of the ASAP system is to learn from events, establish a fix, and make sure the event never happens again. There is never a time when “Kill the Messenger” becomes the strategy of the ASAP process. Clearly the human factors errors were a result of extended time in icing conditions during the climb, not noticing the change in temperature and forgetting to turn off the Anti Ice.. Many aircraft today have electronic alerts or caution messages if the anti-ice remains on when out of icing conditions for this very reason. The added surprise factor was the unusual temperature inversion.

The FAA Meeting

Terry Hand met with two FAA representatives and explained what happened and then told them he planned to share this event with his future pilots so they can learn from it, because he had never seen a temperature inversion like this with such a result to performance, and was never trained for such an event. Unfortunately, Terry’s method of educating pilots would only be to the first officers he flew with and not the other captains. But the company would certainly disseminate this most important information. Or would they?

The FAA did not take action against Terry. Instead, they thanked him for his ability and willingness to educate future pilots. His experience and performance outshined the average pilot. The FAA saw no negligence. The regulatory agency saw no reason to take any license action. Captain Terry Hand had made a human factor error but was a hero in the manner he recovered because of his exceptional performance. We all make errors. What we do after those errors defines our abilities as aviators.

Experience Teaches

Captain Terry Hand is an aviator who understands aerodynamics and performance; therefore, he figured out what was causing the problem and knew how to recover. Because of Captain Hand’s ability and knowledge, that flight resulted in no consequence.

Based upon my experience and the current level of training, I don’t think many pilots, if any, who do not have his background would have had the same outcome. I suspect today’s pilots, without experience and understanding of performance, who were not trained for the exact event, would panic, be surprised, experience startle effect, call it what you want, but that emotion would lead to a reaction and not to a response of recovery.

Captain Hand was never trained for this event, he simply understood and flew his plane. CAE only taught the students how to get out of a full stall, and as a professional aviator Terry avoided that stall before it occurred. He was actually critiqued for not flying the stall profile, despite not allowing the plane to stall.

An Appropriate TransMedics Response Would Be:

1. Pull the pilots temporarily from duty to evaluate,
2. Create a simulator scenario in effort to repeat the event to learn from it,
3. Review the ASAP report,
4. Identify the human factor errors and create a fix to include the consideration of placing the engine heat switch on a checklist, providing a memo to all pilots explaining the abnormal temperature inversion and resultant performance, and even notifying CAE to include temperature inversions in their training.

What Did Transpire

January 7, 2025, the day after the event the Chief Pilot spoke to Terry about the event and was appreciative he filed ASAP. Terry explained everything that happened and what was in his report.

January 8, 2025, two days after the ASAP was filed, TransMedics employed a third party maintenance contractor to download the CVDR data.

January 10, 2025, TransMedics Aviation notified both pilots they would be attending training on January 17, 2025 at CAE in DFW.

January 10, 2025, Jared Porter, a non-pilot Director of Safety, reached out by email asking if Terry had met with the FAA. That created a pause. Was the company concerned Terry would advise the FAA of his lack of training? We can only guess.

On January 13, Terry met with FAA Aviation Safety inspectors Mr John Honemann and Mr. Justin Tillery on a call that lasted approximately 30 minutes. The FAA inspectors closed the meeting with no further action. 

January 16, 2025, Three days after Terry met with the FAA, Jared Porter notified Terry that he cancelled the pilots’ training. He had “elected to pause their scheduled training at CAE until the safety investigation he was doing had been complete.”

On January 27, 2025, a video call was initiated with Terry, his SIC, Joe Downing, Jared Porter, and Hall Lewallen, Director of Operations. During the Zoom call they queried Terry for more information, but he said he had nothing to add to what was already in his ASAP. Terry later said, “I sensed that he wanted me to disclose information outside of the protection of the ASAP report.” Terry said that if felt like “Porter was acting as an Inquisitor, and it did not make me feel that his goal was safety.” 

On February 6, 2025, Terry questioned the status due to the ensuing silence, but it was the next day that he noticed that he and his first officer’s names were no longer shown on the schedule.

February 13 2025, Pilot, Pat Loughlin, the Assistant Chief Pilot, Julien Pelan, and Susan Goodman, TransMedics HR representative telephoned. They conveyed that due to the lengthy investigation, the company had made the decision that Terry and his first officer had created a safety of flight situation that warranted their immediate termination. When Terry asked why the ASAP report was being used to discipline him, because the training was scheduled and then Porter cancelled it as a result of that ASAP report, Pelan disagreed with his argument, and both pilots were terminated that day.

“Terminated due to Pilot Performance”

This company placed into Terry’s file, and that of his first officer, Joe Downing, that they were terminated due to “pilot performance”. Here’s the thing, I’ve testified in multiple legal cases, have trained pilots for years, developed training programs from similar events, hold a PhD in aviation, authored an legal book with respect to retaliation and the Air21 statute, and I can say with authority that this termination was unjust. I’m looking forward to testifying on behalf of these pilots. Captain Terry Hand displayed exceptional performance and the reason the plane was not a hull loss. Yet TransMedics terminated him with a false rationale that will remain in his permanent FAA record, preventing he and his first officer from obtaining a job elsewhere.

The story takes a devious turn and leads to much speculation.

On April 14, 2025, the TransMedics Event Review Committee (ERC) held their first meeting with respect to the ASAP for the pilots they had terminated two months earlier. If that’s not crazy enough, at that meeting, the committee “rejected” the ASAP reports they had filed on 06 January, 2025, and two months after the pilots’ termination.

TransMedics Flight Performance:

In early January 2025, a training Captain posted the following chats discussing a Direct Entry Captain he flew with while conducting Initial Operating Experience (IOE). But his post appears to be a self-indictment of his lack of ability to control the safe operation of a training flight more than a discussion of the IOE Captain’s flying abilities. His failure to control the conduct of the flight resulted in a stall at 1300 feet on approach into Teterboro. These pilots are lucky to be alive. Most concerning is that this training captain remains a training captain at TransMedics Aviation and no action or remedial training was conducted.

Below are the text message chats about from an instructor pilot who allowed the other to almost kill them both. This is deeply concerning.

Performance Concerns Continue

Another captain, a former Navy F14 pilot who retired from a major airline, was brought onboard to TransMedics Aviation, through a connection with the Chief Pilot Pat Loughlin. But his performance I’m told is highly suspect and he is “Known by pilots as being very aggressive in the manner in which he flew almost any airplane.”

“Sometime in the past few months, he rotated the nose on takeoff very aggressively. He pitched the nose so high and so quickly that he bled off airspeed and got a stall warning at low altitude. He scared his Co-Pilot so much that the Co-Pilot later called the company. Initially the rumor was the captain denied the story, then later admitted he nearly stalled. However, when TransMedics pulled the CVDR data, it had been deleted. CVDR data doesn’t delete itself.” Neither does testimony of those involved.

This captain is still employed with TransMedics Aviation.

Safety Management Systems (SMS)

On January 02, 2025 Captain Hand had taken TransMedics’ online Safety Management Systems course, and the curriculum included the value of utilizing the ASAP Reporting System. The course specifically stated, “The content of the ASAP report will not be used to initiate or support any company disciplinary action, or as evidence for any purpose in an FAA enforcement action provided that the alleged non-compliance is inadvertent and must not involve an intentional disregard for safety.”

My educated guess is that this has more to do with Captain Hand reporting directly to the FAA the training failures. and that he would have to “tell” other pilots to educate them, because, despite TransMedics’ SMS that requires by law the company mitigate risk, they would do nothing with respect to learning from the event and fixing the problem. Jared Porter querring Hand about whether or not he spoke to the FAA, and then three days after his interview, Porter cancelled his training is highly suspect.

It’s illegal for an airline to retaliate against an employee for reporting safety concerns to the FAA. It’s illegal to retaliate when an employee files an ASAP. The TransMedics flight department appears to ignore it’s problems, hides mistakes, and then terminates anyone who voices concerns about ongoing operations. The training is highly suspect too. Who is training these pilots?

Fighting Back

Captain Terry Hand and his second in command, Joe Downing, both filed an AIR21 complaint and Lee Seham is their attorney. Both are in good hands. Please read the complaints here:

Terry Hand vs. TransMedics Inc. CASE NO. 2025AIR00031.

Joe Downing vs. TransMedics Inc. CASE NO. 2025AIR00026

I once listened to the closing comments of Honorable Judge Morris say to Delta Air Lines, “The long and the short of it, frankly, is no matter how I rule, this is a sad case. It really is. It’s a sad case. And I would encourage the parties to think long and hard about settling this, before I write this decision, because you can’t un-ring that bell.” He also told them it would be their “business decision to air their (dirty) laundry.”  

Delta did not listen. Will TransMedics? I’ll keep you posted on the case and provide all the details as they arise. But my advice to TransMedics is to get a management team to fix your airline and honor the SMS in place, to mitigate risk instead of killing the messenger.