Recent News Stories That Leave Me Concerned

Jack R. Noel

September 21, 2025

Just this evening I saw an ABC News story about a complete collapse of communication at two airports. I can understand how sometimes there might be such a problem but only one at a time but not two on the same day and both in the same region (Eastern Seaboard).

There have been several news stories about airport problems, mostly with air traffic controllers. I can never understand how people can take this so lightly.

If you’ve any familiarity with aviation, you know the importance of communication between ground and pilots when there are always planes coming and going. Now some of these reports also describe incredibly casual pilots. There was one airline pilot who was on a collision course with Air Force One. The air traffic controller was heard to tell that pilot, “Get off the iPad and pay attention.”

On another front, it’s about recent reports of hostile behavior of Orcas (aka, Killer Whales). I recently became aware that Orcas that were kept at Sea World to perform had actually grabbed their trainers, taken them to the bottom of the pool and bashed them on the bottom and then holding the trainer down for as much as 45 minutes before releasing them. Of course it would be cause for concern if this happened just once, but it’s happened three times.

And yesterday the news carried the story about a pod of Orcas that attacked a tourist boat, bashing it repeatedly until the boat sank. Fortunately, the tourists were rescued unharmed but again it’s very disturbing to see this kind of hostility on the part of such huge and powerful animals.

Of the two, which do you think is more troubling?