Seuring v 21 Air & Delta Air Lines

Last week I wrote a post about the 21 Air crash and pilot error. Today, I’m keeping the events alive so those who needlessly died won’t be forgotten, as we continue the fight for the truth and aviation safety.

David Goodhue and Shirsho Dasgupta, reporters at the Miami Herald, authored an article with Karl Seuring’s AIR 21 connection to 21 Air’s crash and brought up the history of his Delta termination and previous Air 21 complaint.

21 Air LLC is the airline. AIR 21 is the whistleblower statute that was enacted to make employees whole after an airline or aircraft manufacturer retaliated against them for reporting safety concerns. However, this statute is far from perfect and simply because an employee reports safety does not necessarily protect them under the law. The very reason I authored the book, Delta’s Debacle, Legal Lessons Learned and Shared to Save Your Career and Improve Safety.

What I know to be true is that 21 Air’s attorney Chris Harrison’s courtroom statement reproduced in the Miami Herald article, was false, misleading and arguably defaming as quoted in the paragraph from the Herald below:

“21 Air denied the allegation. The company’s attorney, Chris Harrison, told the judge that Seuring was fired because he had lied about his employment history. Seuring, Harrison alleged, lied on his application to 21 Air about why he was terminated from Delta Airlines. Seuring said when applying he was retaliated against for airing safety concerns, but Harrison told the judge Delta let him go for cause. “He’s misleading people into thinking he’s some kind of a hero. He’s a fraud,” Harrison said. “He did it at Delta, and he continues to do it today.”

Read the entire article here, but first let me tell you a few things about what Harrison said. The only reason he isn’t subject to a defamation claim is that he has “absolute privilege” to say whatever he wants in a trial just as witnesses do. I doubt he would have the courage to make those same statements in an interview because he would be proven wrong, and his only intent was to damage Karl Seuring’s reputation in order to win the case for his client.

I know Harrison’s statement was false because I sat through all four days of the Seuring v Delta trial. One month later, in that very same courtroom, with the same judge, I began my trial against Delta that would span an additional three months with a different outcome.

Facts of Karl Seuring’s Termination.

Seuring was a Seattle-based Delta B767ER captain, who had another business known as AirSpeed Engineering. Delta contacted his business because Tech Ops needed spare parts to repair the supplemental type certificated (STC) auxiliary fuel system that was installed on a Chilean Air Force operated 737, that Delta had been contracted for maintenance in Atlanta.

Karl is the STC holder of the FAA license only installed on Boeing SN 28866, a B737-58N. He emailed our Seattle base Chief pilot, Captain Rip Johnson. and disclosed that he was called by Delta Tech Ops and Johnson did not see a problem with his assistance. Karl ordered and shipped the auxiliary fuel tank spare parts to Tech Ops in Atlanta.

The Chilean airplane, SN 28866, a presidential or Head of State B737-58N was in Delta Tech Ops hands from December 2015 to March 2016 in Atlanta for a C-check on an FAA (Chilean managed) approved maintenance program. Chile’s CAA or Civil Aeronautics Association had no bilateral aviation safety agreements with the FAA and they relied on Delta and FAA for technical support

Karl had also attended an MRO conference, a major trade conference and exhibition dedicated to the commercial aviation maintenance, repair, and overhaul, that happened to be sponsored by Delta, in Lima, Peru. As Karl was headed home from the conference, to Seattle via Atlanta, he was invited to Tech Ops for a meeting with the Chilean Air Force group. Delta management asked Karl to remove his Delta pilot ID at Tech Ops before meeting and speaking with the representatives.

During that meeting Karl presented the FAA’s Instruction for Continued Airworthiness (ICA), marked “Not FAA Approved” to the Chilean Air Force representatives with about 15 or 20 Tech Ops staff in the room observing this disclosure. “SACO” the FAA’s Seattle Aviation Certification office for the FAA, specifically asked for the “FAA Approved” language to be included a week before Karl met with TechOps in Atlanta.

The ICA, also known as Continued Operation Safety (COS) included FAA required tasks with added inspections for Delta, who’s client subsequently emailed and requested Karl to assist with “Dents beyond Limits” and a “failed 10-PSI Pressure Relief Valve”. That work did not happen at Tech Ops, and the changes to the ICA were marked “not approved” since Delta nor its Chilean client had completed these tasks. 

After this conflict occurred, Delta had pushed their client’s aircraft out on the Tech Ops ramp to not interrupt the mainline flow of airframes in the shop. The Chilean Air Force just wanted their president’s airplane back. They eventually flew it, in what Karl believed was an unairworthy condition in U.S. airspace, and he reported his concern to the FAA, but Delta had already began a job action against him.

Delta Does a Look back and Terminates Karl

The Monday after Karl’s Friday Tech Ops visit and his bad news that the plane had not been repaired, Delta management directed regional Director Captain Phil Davis to conduct a three-year look back investigation to find something they could use to terminate Captain Karl Seuring. This is not the first investigation that Davis has been tasked with such a duty and many pilots have lost their careers in this manner. When Delta wants an employee gone, they see what they can find to build a case. I know a pilot who was struggling to juggle job, parent illness, and landlocked new home in three different states. He used positive space to get to work. Davis found that discretion, but one time was not enough so he waited for three additional months until he did it again, and then they fired him.

During trial, Jim Graham admitted that Karl’s termination letter included that his Tech Ops visit was the “trigger” for the investigation against him.

Two years earlier Karl had called in sick for a trip due to a wrist issue. He then jump seated on another carrier during his sick call. His return to Seattle days later, of which was through Atlanta, with full flights, he notified scheduling he was in Atlanta. He would not be able to make it to Seattle on time, but he was available to fly out of Atlanta if they needed him there. Scheduling was thankful for his notification, and he was never needed in either city because Delta had many pilots on reserve at that time. There was never counseling or an issue.

Nobody cared of these events. Not until after Karl attempted to ground the Chilean Presidential B737 because it was unsafe to fly, did Delta go on the witch hunt. More so, Delta never paid AirSpeed Engineering or reimbursed Karl, for anything. They didn’t even pay him for the PMA fuel system parts they ordered and he shipped to Tech Ops. Instead, Delta accused him of violating pass travel to the Lima MRO conference and attending without paying a fee.

ALPA was no help either. The union didn’t disclose that there were similarly, but worse, situated pilots with no job action against any of them. A handful of B747-400 pilots who were not being used on reserve, all decided to sit at home instead of on call in Detroit. When scheduling needed someone one day, and a trip was delayed, all hell broke loose because there were no pilots in position. Delta learned these pilots were sitting home on reserve and initially terminated them for being out of position, but ALPA got all their jobs back. ALPA did not do the same for Karl, even though his was an unintentional act and he was never called for a trip.

Why the Air 21 Law did not protect Karl?

There were many issues in this case of which Judge Morris believed didn’t fit the AIR 21 statute. First, the airplane was not a US operated aircraft by Delta but owned and operated by the Chilean Air Force. The fact they had him remove his ID, supported their assertion that he was not there as a Delta employee. Second, Karl was supporting his business at the time he spoke to the Chilean Air Force representatives, Third, by the time Karl brought this to the FAA as a violation, Delta had already retaliated and the report came after the retaliation. In Judge Morris’ opinion, the case didn’t fit. After listening to the testimony, I told Karl’s attorneys during a break in the hallway that the law didn’t fit prior to the judge’s statement, and they needed to drop this. But this did not mean Delta did not terminate Karl for safety concerns.

I listened to the judge tell Delta that they should not be terminating this long time and experienced Captain for the reasons they asserted with the look back. Furthermore, ALPA should have stood by Karl. But ALPA has a history on behalf of Delta. They allowed an arbitrator, Carol Wittenberg, to judge his case who ruled for the termination. Wittenberg had a history with my case.

Delta’s attorneys first selected Wittenberg and three others, without a strike-off, and none were even available on the calendar, until they had an ex parte conversation with all four arbitrators to change her dates. Delta said, “You can pick from the four.” I refused all four. Delta went into silence. Then six months later, after I had just returned to duty and was about to start B777 training, ALPA and Delta decided we needed to arbitrate before trial. They arbitrarily selected Wittenberg, only. Despite the Collective bargaining agreement and the Air 21 statute asserting that I was to be participatory in the selection, ALPA legal refused. Therefore, I dropped my case and relied on the Federal statute. It’s of my opinion that Wittenberg was selected for a purpose to remove Karl as she was in my trial. He lost his job and the Air 21 statue could not protect or help him.

But, Delta did retaliate because of Karl’s concern for safety.

21 AIR’s Assertion Karl Lied on his Application

While 21 Air’s attorney, Harrison, asserts that Karl “lied on his application to 21 Air about why he was terminated from Delta Airlines,” he was wrong.

Not only did Karl tell the company why he was terminated, but Chief Pilot Bruce Joseph testified in his trial that Karl had told him about the events herein of his termination. Karl had emailed Joseph the AIR 21 complaint he filed against Delta on January 20, 2022. More so, 21 Air had Seuring’s PRD, the pilot record database, document that indicates Delta terminated him. Of course they would ask why. However, 21 Air never even contacted Delta.

Even Delta’s VP of flight operations at the time, Captain Jim Graham, admitted during trial he did not investigate Karl’s alleged pass violations nor was Karl ever called to fly, when he was allegedly “out of position.” 

AIRLINE SAFETY

I later learned that the Chilean B737 had a fuel leak on a stop in Victorville, California and Karl was called by a Boeing representative for support. He was correct, there was a safety problem. When Karl reported a captain over speeding the flaps on his observation flight at 21 Air, and challenged the fatigue rules, then as the pilot’s union president, 21 Air also went on a witch hunt to find something on Karl Seuring, not unlike Delta. But in this case, they made the assertion out of whole cloth. Then there was a B767 crash in Miami and five people died.

We are now waiting for Judge Morris to rule on the Seuring v 21 Air. The Delta action and 21 Air cases are “intrinsically intertwined” into a tangled mess of destroying those who report safety.

We do know that the FAA knew there were problems at 21 Air, and they did nothing and people died. After my AIR 21 case the regulators did nothing and the problem, Captain Graham, was promoted to the Endeavor Air CEO and they flipped a plane on the Toronto runway due to pilot performance. Those passengers were lucky. The FAA knew of Delta and Endeavor training failures and did nothing there either. Endeavor has Air 21 complaints against it too. The FAA knows Prime Air’s other carrier, ABX, is involved in an AIR 21 case and discovery proved they aren’t training their pilots per their FAA approved program, and the FAA has done nothing there, either.

I supposed we wait and see who goes down next. The question is, who should we hold accountable?

You can read Karl Seuring’s Trial Brief and his Second Post-hearing Response here.