For one veteran airline captain, a routine flight to Denver changed her view about aviation safety—but not because of an in-flight crisis.

Rather, the captain heard a story that—for the first time in her decades-long career—made her uneasy about putting her loved ones on a plane.

During a 2024 conversation, a flight instructor described unusual steps managers had taken to salvage the career of a young female trainee pilot. The instructor described an “egregious” example of the apparent relaxing of standards to meet diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals, the captain said.

The trainee repeatedly failed rudimentary pilot training tests. By “crashing” a computer simulation flight, she proved her inability to operate an airplane’s three most basic control mechanisms, the instructor said.

Yet management balked when the instructor failed her.

“She was rehabilitated and allowed to continue, even though she should have been washed out,” the captain told The Epoch Times, speaking on condition of anonymity because her employer had not authorized her to speak to reporters.

“I don’t care if you’re a man or a woman, that is concerning to me.”

Disturbed that such a trainee may still be in the cockpit, the captain said: “I don’t want myself or my family to be in the back of that airplane. ... That’s really what it comes down to, right? Would you want to be in the back of that airplane?”

The captain, a woman who was hired long before DEI programs took hold, said the story of the trainee shows how far her airline was willing to go for the apparent sake of DEI.

These programs—aimed at boosting women and minorities—remain entrenched at airlines, despite President Donald Trump’s DEI-ending executive orders and growing concerns over air crashes and safety incidents, the captain and other workers said. The captain pointed to signs that additional inept trainees are being “pushed through.”

After simulator training, trainees fly an actual aircraft under the guidance of “line-check airmen.” These expert pilots have reported that some students are now taking four times as long to finish a mandatory training as they should, the captain said.

Frustrated, some of these line-check airmen are stepping aside; one told the captain, “I saw the quality of pilots that we were hiring, and I don’t want anything to do with it.”

Four flight attendants, six current pilots, a retired pilot, and an industry expert all told The Epoch Times that they support attracting more women and minorities to aviation—but not if standards are lowered to do so. They concur that DEI initiatives have gone overboard. Nearly all the interviewees asked that their names be withheld because their employers had not authorized them to speak to reporters. But a whistleblower, Capt. Sherry Walker, who filed a federal complaint in April, agreed to be named on condition that her employer remain unidentified.

Employers appear to be clinging to DEI, but it is less obvious now—probably because of Trump’s order, complaints, and lawsuits, workers said.

An FAA employee who requested anonymity told The Epoch Times that the agency “just moved around” pro-DEI personnel and “changed their titles.” Thus, DEI remains “built into the system,” according to him.

“They just do whatever they want; there’s no mechanism of enforcement,” he said.

Airline employees made similar statements.

Employees claimed that airlines appear to be generally ignoring the mental and physical health risks prevalent among people who identify as transgender—a subgroup that airlines typically have embraced in “inclusivity” efforts. Some workers also alleged that airlines are force-feeding gender ideology to them via mandatory training sessions, violating their religious rights.

Seeing DEI persist is particularly troubling in a safety-dependent industry such as aviation, employees said.

However, most of the interviewees said they do not want to scare people and that they believe that air travel remains safe. Still, they warned that safety is eroding for multiple reasons, including DEI. One flight attendant said that if the public knew the safety-threatening factors that employees see, “they would stop flying altogether.”

These airline professionals urge their industry to divorce itself from distractions such as DEI initiatives. And some are calling upon the Trump administration or Congress to step in if airlines refuse to change.

Asked to address concerns that DEI could affect safety, Airlines for America—which advocates for U.S. air carriers—released a statement to The Epoch Times.

“Safety is, and always will be, the top priority for U.S. airlines,“ it said. ”[Members of Airlines for America] comply with all federal regulations and laws, including those related to training, certification and licenses.”

“To date, there have been no public accusations of inflight incidents or accidents tied directly to employees that were unqualified for their jobs as pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers, dispatchers, engineers, or any other FAA-licensed personnel,” William J. McGee, senior fellow for Aviation and Travel at the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote in a January op-ed.

“They don’t appear to be backing off one iota,” the pilot said.

Will Scolinos, legal counsel for America First Legal, said his organization is prepared “to ensure that DEI is not ‘alive and well’“ at these airlines, referring to those named in the Labor Department complaint. He did not say why that complaint omitted Delta Air Lines, which is among the U.S. airlines commonly called ”The Big Four.”

In an email to The Epoch Times, Scolinos said that if any airline “engages in unlawful DEI, then it exposes the company to potential enforcement investigations and actions by multiple federal agencies.”

The Epoch Times contacted all four major U.S. airlines about DEI concerns. None responded by publication time.

“You’re putting an aluminum tube in the air ... going to 500 miles an hour, at 35,000 feet,” he said.

Pilots also face volatile weather conditions, among other variables. Crews need to be ready to react; they have little room for error, Patterson said.

Many people have no idea “how fragile the system is ... and these added stressors can be critical in whether an incident becomes an ACCIDENT,” another pilot wrote to The Epoch Times.

Before Patterson left Delta in 2016, he said, he saw DEI gaining a foothold there.

Now DEI permeates the airline industry, Patterson said, and he believes that hiring standards and performance have deteriorated because of it.

Increasingly, he said, fellow pilots have confided, “I had to basically ‘solo’ the airplane today, because my copilot was inept and under-qualified and inexperienced.”

“That’s scary,” Patterson said.

Now, DEI criteria seem to be elevated above individuals’ qualifications, he said.

“Back in my day, it was dog-eat-dog, and they didn’t care what your color or sex was,“ Patterson said. ”They just wanted you to be the best they could possibly hire; that is not the case today.”

“Let’s stop talking about perception and make things safer,” he told The Epoch Times.

Patterson and others warned that while airline executives might be trying to please investors and lenders who consider DEI scores, any such DEI-related benefits could be negated if a DEI-related distraction or a less-qualified crew member causes fatalities, injuries, or aircraft damage.

A current pilot cited “the cost of retraining these pilots that can’t make the grade.”

Then and now, the interviewed workers asserted that airlines often give preferential treatment to people in “protected” groups—ethnic minorities, women, and those with alternative sexual or gender ideologies.

Besides being allowed repeated attempts to pass skills tests, people in those groups often violate conduct rules without consequence—and have no qualms about reporting coworkers to management for the smallest perceived slight.

Interviewees said an innocent remark such as “Hey, guys” can lead to disciplinary action; it may be considered “misgendering” because it excludes females and men who identify as transgender.

“I’m totally afraid of ‘misgendering'; I’m afraid of saying the wrong thing,” a female pilot with decades of experience told The Epoch Times.

She also said she believes that her pro-DEI union would not defend her if she were to face discipline.

This has a chilling effect on employee communication. Now, employees talk less with each other, hoping to avoid issues, and they are fearful that management will retaliate if they report concerns about people in DEI categories.

Thus, “diversity hires” may get away with failing to arm exit doors, neglecting required safety checks, and using their phones even during critical phases of flight such as takeoffs and landings, a flight attendant said.

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Statements from Trump and others fueled speculation that DEI may have played a role.

Despite his disclaimers that much remained unknown as investigations continued, critics pounced on Trump for making anti-DEI remarks “without evidence.”

Trump said some of his predecessors, including President Joe Biden, had lowered FAA standards for air traffic controllers for DEI reasons.

Trump blamed “a confluence of bad decisions” for the tragedy. Both before and after the crash, Trump took steps to reinforce air travel safety. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has repeatedly announced new initiatives to hire more air traffic controllers and modernize the FAA.

Whatever its causes, the Washington collision was the first multi-fatality crash for a U.S. commercial airliner in nearly 16 years.

Lamenting the end of that safety streak, an experienced Texas-based pilot decided that it was time to air her long-simmering concerns.

However, doing so landed Capt. Sherry Walker in hot water with her employer. Now considered a whistleblower, Walker has filed a federal complaint over the airline’s alleged retaliation. The Epoch Times is not naming the airline, at Walker’s request.

In early February, Walker—who also serves as a flight instructor and college professor—compiled an 80-page report on “the impact of DEI-based hiring in U.S. airlines.”

She sent the report to members of Congress who head aviation-related committees, calling for them to remedy problems that DEI is causing at U.S. air carriers and at the FAA.

Walker pointed to signs that all four major airlines appear to be continuing DEI practices despite Trump’s executive order. She also contended that airline practices do not align with another presidential order, which bans transgender people from military service because they are “not combat-ready/capable.”

“Why is it acceptable that airline pilots with the same diagnosis are allowed to fly the nation’s troops ... or the general public, for that matter?” she asked.

The FAA did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

Walker outlined how the FAA’s “DEI-driven” policies have created distractions and even disrupted service.

In 2024, the FAA began removing gender-specific language and “replacing standard aviation terminology,” Walker wrote, diverting time and effort from “mission-critical safety priorities.”

Walker’s report to Congress traces concerns about the FAA’s transgender policies back to 2012.

That year, under pressure from transgender advocates, the FAA stopped requiring “extensive psychiatric evaluations” for pilots who identified as transgender, the report said. Yet the FAA still insists upon those tests for pilots diagnosed with other mental health issues.

In 2015, during a flight from Barcelona to Düsseldorf, when a Germanwings pilot left the cockpit to use the restroom, the copilot locked him out. The copilot then flew the aircraft into a mountainside in the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board.

Her report also cites a growing body of research suggesting that so-called “gender-affirming” hormone treatments can cause aggression. They also may increase chances of heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots—any of which could incapacitate a pilot during flight.

Walker, who is white, has noticed passengers looking askance at or scoffing at her and pilots who are nonwhite—apparently assuming that they got hired because of their demographic attributes.

They have no idea that Walker and some of her peers were hired pre-DEI.

Specifically, she said United and Southwest airlines have been subjecting employees to anti-discrimination training that also requires affirmations of gender-ideology principles.

A Southwest pilot told The Epoch Times that many employees there were on the verge of “revolt” over a training that was presented as an anti-sexual harassment lesson.

“But when you watch it, you find out that it has ideological statements, such as, in short: Men are sometimes women; women are sometimes men,” he said.

That did not sit well with him and others who think that these concepts violate Christian beliefs.

“People like me read this and say, ‘You know, I never promised to do this when I got hired to fly airplanes here,’” the pilot said.

This year, he said, the airline has been denying religious exemptions for these lessons, “leaving employees to either lose their employee status or violate their beliefs.”

“It’s unbelievable,” the pilot said.

Walker’s statements constituted “protected activity,” he said, under a law that shields whistleblowers from any “adverse action” for disclosing airline safety-related information.

Company officials called Walker into a meeting on April 14. They warned her that employees cannot discuss company-related matters without previous approval, while conceding that Walker’s media statements did not name the company.

Airline officials told Walker that “her conduct had compromised ‘safety,’” the complaint reads. They told her that she could face discipline if she speaks out again.

This action against Walker follows a 27-year, unblemished record as “an exemplary pilot,” the complaint states. It also points out that Walker holds a bachelor’s, a master’s, and a doctorate in aviation-related disciplines.

If the case is not settled, it will go before an administrative law judge who handles disputes with government agencies. Seham said the company has not yet responded to Walker’s complaint.

Nor have the representatives and senators to whom Walker directed her report: Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Reps. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) and Sam Graves (R-Mo.).

She wants them to demand “reports from all major airlines regarding hiring practices” to see if they are complying with Trump’s DEI-ending order. She said Congress also ought to investigate airline employees’ religious infringement complaints, “ensure the FAA returns to standard phraseology,” and “demand the FAA address the medical certification of transgender pilots.”

Airline Capt. Tom Oltorik, a former military pilot who heads a Florida organization that advocates for citizens’ rights, told The Epoch Times that DEI requirements and COVID-19 vaccination mandates have demoralized airline employees—which affects safety in an insidious way.

“Employees going the extra mile at work is an extremely valuable commodity in safety and efficiency of any operation,“ he said. ”Once employees lose confidence in executive leadership, they become despondent and unengaged. That’s when you start having small mishaps that lead to the big problems.”