Advocating for Aviation Safety (AFW May/June 2023)

This article appeared in the May/June 2023 issue of Aviation for Women Magazine

If you attended the WAI23 conference, you may have spotted Karlene Petitt at the Literary Aviatrix Author Reading and Reception on opening night, or at the Authors Connect booth on the exhibit floor with her collection of fiction, non-fiction, and picture books. This prolific author has published a total of nine books so far, with more on the way. 

Karlene retired in January 2023 after a 40-year career flying for eight airlines and confronting heinous retaliation from her employer. As she earned her Doctorate in Aviation Safety, Karlene submitted a report to Delta Airlines in 2016 based on her thesis that highlighted numerous systemic safety issues and analyses of near-catastrophic incidents. The airline subsequently paid a doctor $74,000 to diagnose her with bipolar disorder, medically disqualifying her from flying. She was found fit in February 2017 when a panel of nine MayoClinic doctors evaluated her and discredited the diagnosis, but Delta delayed her training until January 2018 when she finally returned to the cockpit. Her subsequent Air21 complaint and court battle awarded her $500,000. 

Despite this minor victory, the ordeal took a toll on her health, and she decided she could do more good by retiring and advocating for aviation safety outside the airline. Incredibly, while the doctor forfeited his medical license to avoid charges, no one at the airline has been held accountable. Karlene is calling for changes to the Air21 statute to prevent this from happening again. Sign the petition on her website: karlenepetitt.blogspot.com. 

Karlene says that writing helped her as she navigated this painful journey. Her works include the 6-book Flight for . . . thriller novel series that closely follows her personal experiences and aviation safety concerns through fictional characters. We discussed book one, Flight for Control, in the Aviatrix Book Club in February. You can find my interview with Karlene on the Literary Aviatrix website, YouTube Channel and podcast. She plans to add several more to the series.

We all face adversity at some point in our aviation careers, but Karlene’s is an extraordinary case. I applaud her courage and endurance in standing up for herself, and for safety in the aviation industry. 

The Flight for . . . series follows accident investigator Kathryn Jacobs and pilot Darby Bradshaw as they uncover alarming safety issues and battle corruption at the highest levels at Global Airlines and in the FAA. 

Normalization of Deviance: A Threat to Aviation Safety, is based on her doctoral thesis: Safety Culture, Training, Understanding, Aviation Passion: The Impact on Manual Flight and Operational Performance. The results of this research may have predicted and prevented numerous documented crashes. The data used to support her thesis prove we can’t simply blame the pilot in catastrophic incidents.

Flight to Success: Be the Captain of Your Life is Karlene’s journey through eight airlines, seven type ratings, and two master’s degrees while raising a family. Intertwined with her stories are those of others who share their successes, failures, losses, fears, hopes and dreams. What drives people to phenomenal success? The secret correlates with many aspects of flight. If you apply these tips to your everyday life there will be nothing you cannot accomplish. Life is about choice. The choice now, is to open your mind and heart and begin to dream. Be prepared to takeoff for the flight of your life, and enjoy the journey.

I Am Awesome: The ABC’s of Being Me is a motivational ABC book focused on career exploration and character traits. The fun dynamic pictures, and poetry will assist the very young to explore the art of reading while learning their ABCs and inspiring future growth in career opportunities.