Martha Lunken has privileges revoked

https://airfactsjournal.com/author/marthalunken/

About Martha Lunken
For no apparent reason, Martha fell in love with airplanes at age nine and she learned to fly an Ercoupe in the early 1960s while attending college in her hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. Armed with a degree in English Literature, she became a flight instructor and operated a flying school at Cincinnati's Lunken Airport for seven years. She married Ebby Lunken, for whose family the airport was named. After a divorce and far too much time instructing, Martha reluctantly accepted a job in 1980 as an Aviation Safety Inspector with FAA's Flight Standards Division at DuPage Airport in Chicago. Eight years later she made her way back home via the Indianapolis FSDO and ran the FAA's safety program in southern Ohio ... when she wasn't on suspension. She has an ATP, airplane single and multi-engine land and sea, and a commercial hot air balloon rating. She's type rated in the Lockheed 18, DC-3 and SA-227 aircraft. Martha owns a 1956 Cessna 180, half of a J-3 Cub and has 12,000+ hours flight time.
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Looks like she was a FAAsteam Program Manager. Interesting quip about "when she wasn't on suspension".
 
Lowflynjack said:
On another note, the FnAA (who has told me personally they want to be the kinder, gentler FnAA) was at an airshow I was at a few weeks ago. When I say airshow, it was a fly-in with one performer in a T6. Before the show, a guy came in and did a low pass down the runway in his Nanchang with smoke on, pulled up and came around to land. Three FnAA officials met him when he parked and went over his paperwork with him for the next hour or more. One of the FnAA guys had a gold badge on a chain and was especially good at keeping us all safe. I mean you know a pass down a runway could kill everyone there.
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Not to defend the Feds, but, was this at an airshow with waivered airspace? If not, the Nanchang pilot goofed. During an airshow in waivered airspace, low passes are fine. At a non-waivered fly-in? Then a low pass could be seen by the Feds as a potential “careless and reckless” operation.

Low passes (and flying under bridges) are fun, but I don’t do them anymore. There are too many cameras everywhere with the evidence posted on YouTube. Also, I don’t understand all the teeth gnashing on this thread either; why all the bickering? She goofed, got caught, admitted to it. The FAA steps in... duh.
 
And yes, revoking the certificates doesn't "prevent" anything. That relies on the compliance of the individual with the laws and rules. If one doesn't they can then be arrested.

In this case, I think Lunken will comply with the orders: she wants to fly again as a licensed pilot.

It is the same dilemma that @denverpilot mentioned in the restaurant thread. And it's the same issue the bedevils the folks that think that passing more laws will really fix a problem: one can pass all the laws they want but it requires folks to not ignore them - if we pass more laws that get ignored, then the general respect for "the law" decreases with the result being a need to militarize the enforcers. It's one of the things we should have learned with the 55 MPH speed limit back in the 70's and 80's, and it's some the we should have learned in the War on Drugs. The lesson will not be learned with gun control, either. Same thing applies here: make more laws are rely on people to be law-abiding... those that aren't law abiding will ignore them anyway.
 
jbDC9 said:
Not to defend the Feds, but, was this at an airshow with waivered airspace? If not, the Nanchang pilot goofed. During an airshow in waivered airspace, low passes are fine. At a non-waivered fly-in? Then a low pass could be seen by the Feds as a potential “careless and reckless” operation.
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How is it reckless? Is a landing "reckless?" Is a go-around reckless, that the instructor intended to do, given it's a requirement for students to practice and log go-arounds? Wouldn't a "low pass" with 20 KTS extra speed actually be safer than a "go-around" executed 10 KTS above stalling speed? Working over a runway is hardly a truly reckless thing - although I'm certain an excessively steep pull up could be determined to be so... but that's subjective.
 
jbDC9 said:
Not to defend the Feds, but, was this at an airshow with waivered airspace? If not, the Nanchang pilot goofed. During an airshow in waivered airspace, low passes are fine. At a non-waivered fly-in? Then a low pass could be seen by the Feds as a potential “careless and reckless” operation.

Low passes (and flying under bridges) are fun, but I don’t do them anymore. There are too many cameras everywhere with the evidence posted on YouTube. Also, I don’t understand all the teeth gnashing on this thread either; why all the bickering? She goofed, got caught, admitted to it. The FAA steps in... duh.
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It was waivered airspace, but the show hadn't started, so I don't think it was active yet. It was the pilot's fault, it was more of the way they were acting that bothered me.

My only opinion on Martha is it seems incredibly harsh to take her license. I've seen people that only got a suspension that I truly believe will kill someone eventually.
 
Lowflynjack said:
It was waivered airspace, but the show hadn't started, so I don't think it was active yet. It was the pilot's fault, it was more of the way they were acting that bothered me.

My only opinion on Martha is it seems incredibly harsh to take her license. I've seen people that only got a suspension that I truly believe will kill someone eventually.
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I agree, and again, follow the rules, folks, but that doesn't mean that one can't question how reasonable some rules are.
 
RyanShort1 said:
I agree, and again, follow the rules, folks, but that doesn't mean that one can't question how reasonable some rules are.
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Yep. The problem I've found is that people don't want to question them or their rules. We don't want to be on a list. Recently I was asked by one of them if I was the photographer based out of Taylor. I just walked away. I don't need them knowing me or anything about me. I learned the hard way that they can do whatever they want to you and you have no recourse.
 
Lowflynjack said:
Yep. The problem I've found is that people don't want to question them or their rules. We don't want to be on a list. Recently I was asked by one of them if I was the photographer based out of Taylor. I just walked away. I don't need them knowing me or anything about me. I learned the hard way that they can do whatever they want to you and you have no recourse.
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Being able to have a debate about it, even after the rule is written, should be understood to be a fundamental liberty in this country... I'll follow the rules, but think it's unreasonable if you can't discuss their merits. Also, it's not like we ever got to vote, or actually have real debates over most of this stuff.
 
Fearless Tower said:
That may have something to do with it.

I don’t think she left there on the best of terms.
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I think she worked at more than one FSDO, but Cincinnati is "home". And yes, you're probably right.

I also think the whole Puehler scandal didn't help either.
 
wsuffa said:
It's been a long time so I don't remember whether the appeal goes in to the "regular" courts or into the court of appeals - if it's the court of appeals, I don't believe there's room for a jury trial. But again, it's been a long time and some of the appeals processes have changed (for example, appealing a TSA/DHS matter goes to the court of appeals, which presents an obstacle without a lower court ruling).
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It used to be that the appeal from the final NTSB order was to the circuit court of appeals, but the pilot's bill of rights changed that to where you now appeal the revocation of your pilot certificate to the federal district court, and you are entitled to de novo review, meaning that there is less deference to the agency's determinations. Appeals of other FAA orders are still taken to the appropriate circuit court of appeals. I once litigated a case on behalf of a private entity that had been sued for their role with respect to SAC cards (statement of aerobatic competency), and I had the case thrown out on the basis that the civil suit was an impermissible collateral attack on an FAA order, and their sole recourse was to appeal to the appropriate circuit court of appeals rather than attempt to file a civil law suit. They had previously attempted to appeal the loss of their SAC cards to the NTSB, but the NTSB dismissed their appeal because SAC cards are not "certificates," which meant that the proper venue for appeal was to the appropriate circuit court and the NTSB had no jurisdiction.

Interesting side note: the U.S. Supreme Court has original jurisdiction (as opposed to jurisdiction to perform appellate review) in certain types of cases under the U.S. Constitution, and even conducted at least one jury trial. (And I think only one) in its history. Georgia v. Brailsford, Powell & Hopton :: 3 U.S. 1 (1794) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center So, it isn't out of the question that witnesses could be sworn in even though a hearing is held by a circuit court. Now, that being said, I believe that the review by the Court of appeals is limited to the administrative record. See 49 U.S.C. 46306
 
I don't care how old she is, just a case of someone who thinks she's an entitled princess getting caught exercising her self entitlement. For once, "affluenza" didn't come into play, which I think speaks for how many people she has crossed in this region over time.

I bet if her ex's name was anything but Lunken she would've dropped it shortly after the divorce, but instead it helps with her self entitlement.
 
Personally I gave up reading her articles a good while ago. Just too cranky and came across as entitled to me.

She’s not the average pilot. She writes articles because of her flying credentials. She has a following of pilots who respect her and her word. If she does it with little or no consequences how many others would do likewise? What bridges are safe to fly under and what ones aren’t? And one can do things just because the whim strikes?

She gets paid for being a role model, whether that’s what she’d call it or not. Normalizing inappropriate behavior is not being a good role model, IMHO.

Having read her articles before, if she got off with something lighter I suspect it wouldn’t be too many articles down the road where she’d be relating the story, alluding to the consequences and saying it was worth it.

Maybe it will come out in other articles but I’m not sure where I see she’s expressed any remorse. I wonder if that figured into the outcome.
 
I have flown under things much lower to the ground than the bridge she violated. I don’t see how it warranted revocation. Just my opinion.
 
I enjoy reading Martha’s stuff, but anyone who reads her will know she has spent many years publicly insulting the FAA including her local FSDO. She tells many tales of violating regs, breaking rules, etc. She’s crashed planes and landed on a highway after running out of fuel.

It’s no surprise the FAA cut her no slack. She long ago torched any good will that might have helped her.
 
Morgan3820 said:
I never understood why flying under a bridge was such a big deal. What’s the worst that would likely happen? I can legally fly over a body of water at low level but not if there’s a bridge there?
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If you hit the bridge there would be a huge and expensive engineering study to see if the bridge was, um, roadworthy, and if they closed it, that's THE main artery between Cincinnati and Columbus.
 
luvflyin said:
Under what in a what? C'mon now, statute of limitations is probably over. Give it up:devil:
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I was operating under a different part of the regulations so it was legal...

power lines in OH-58 helicopter and ag airplanes. The AT-802 being the largest one I’ve taken under a wire. Sometimes it’s safer to worker under the wires than it is to go over...
 
Tarheelpilot said:
I was operating under a different part of the regulations so it was legal...

power lines in OH-58 helicopter and ag airplanes. The AT-802 being the largest one I’ve taken under a wire. Sometimes it’s safer to worker under the wires than it is to go over...
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Gotcha. Damn, I was so hoping it was something illegal:rofl:
 
Around here if you look close a lot of bridges have a bunch of fishing line hanging off of them. I wouldn’t fly under one.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Mtns2Skies said:
So is it safe to say it was a....





Wait for it....






Wait for it....







Suspension bridge
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In one sense of the word...

but, no, it’s not. There are actually 2 parallel bridges now, so even if one got hit, the other could carry the load both ways as it did when they were reconstructing it. Iirc, it’s a girder bridge.

I went over it the other day.
 
Martha Lunken knew better. After pulling a stunt like that I'd start worrying about her cognitive processes. She'll have to go pass her private again. Probably a good thing, it'll keep her out of trouble.
 
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