Happy Fast Jet Friday,

If you are new here, welcome. This is where I share what four decades in aviation have taught me, and what I am still learning.

Twenty-five years ago this morning, nearly three thousand people went to work, boarded an airplane, or answered a call, and never came home.

The passengers and crews of American Airlines Flight 11 and Flight 77, and United Airlines Flight 175 and Flight 93. The people at their desks in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The firefighters, police officers, and paramedics who went up the stairs while everyone else came down. Their families have carried it for a quarter of a century, and the world we live in now was shaped that morning.

It redirected my own life as well, both in the military and at the Air Line. I sat down with Ben Freedland and finally told that story properly, start to finish.

Read it here: The Day Everything Changed

More of that conversation is coming in the weeks ahead. Today, though, take a few minutes and reflect on what was lost and what was learned.

Never forget.

An experienced, professional aviator has rarely been worth more than right now, and both sides of this business are proving it.

Civilian. The demand is real. I am watching people I mentor land cockpits, and showing up in person at rush events is a big part of why.

Military. The services are paying hard to keep the aviators they have.

• Air Force FY26 Aviation Bonus, up to 50,000 dollars per year for eligible aviators. That window closed August 31.
• Army aviation warrant officers, roughly 75,600 dollars over three years at 12 to 14 years of service, and north of 200,000 dollars over six years at 18 and above.

That is what experience is worth. Then set it aside. Serve because you want to serve. A bonus is a good reason to stay in a career you already love. It is a poor reason to pick one.

Keep going.

Three losses in seven days.

A Hellenic Air Force F-4 Phantom went down during its display at Tanagra on September 5. Major Ioannis Blesias, 40, and Captain Dimitrios Petrou, 37, were killed.

A cargo 767 overran the runway at Miami International the next day and struck vehicles beyond the airport boundary. Five people died, none of them on the airplane.

And a Piper Seneca carrying a family of four went down off the Bahamas on a flight home to Miami. Nobody survived.

All three are under investigation, and you will see confident opinions long before any are finished. I have made mistakes in airplanes, and that makes me careful about judging another crew from a headline.

It is not our place to judge before we have the facts. It is our place to learn.

We owe the people who died a thorough investigation, the crews a fair one, and everyone still flying an honest account of what can be learned.

My prayers are with all of those families.